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“That sounds…unusual?”

  June laughed. “No, it’s the latest craze. We’re teaching it as fitness and dance, although we do hold sexy classes for bachelorette parties and stuff.” Mal finally released her, and June immediately took her cue from that and she stepped back. “Follow me.”

  June led her down the hall to a room that Mal knew was normally their playroom, but, sure enough, there was now a pole mounted in there.

  June slipped her sandals off, walked over to it, reach up, grabbed it, took a couple of steps, and spun around the pole, climbing into a sexy position that widened Mal’s eyes.

  “Holy crap!”

  “It’s great,” Scrye said from behind Mal, where he stood in the doorway and smiled. “You should try it.”

  June did a lazy, sexy slide down to the floor. “Only if you promise to keep eating. Maybe that’s a shitty bribe for me to use on you, but hey, I’ll do my part to help.”

  Mal saw that Doug, Aden, and Niall had followed them and were also watching. “Do you think it’s okay?” she asked Niall. “I mean, if I take lessons?”

  Niall looked to Doug and they seemed to form a silent consensus. “I think it could help ye get out an’ reconnect with the world,” Niall said. “But as June said, ye need to continue yer progress. It’ll be even more important now, if ye’re doing that, because ye’ll be burning calories. Ye’ll need to adjust yer intake to maintain or increase yer weight and maintain your goals.”

  Except…Mal felt a little thrill of excitement roll through her, and when was the last time that’d happened? “But if I maintain or gain, I can do it?”

  Niall did the Dom eyebrow thing. “I believe that’s what we just told ye, girl,” he quietly said.

  She shivered.

  Damn.

  I wish Kel was here.

  “Thank you, Sir.”

  * * * *

  Kel spent the afternoon rearranging the items he stored in the warehouse bay downstairs. He also went through his photography equipment, dusted, organized his ropes—basically wasted time and wore himself out so he wasn’t a nervous wreck at dinner. He didn’t want to have any damn energy.

  He wanted to approach dinner as calmly as possible for Mal’s sake.

  The only thing allowing him to force himself to do that was pulling up the texts from Niall that past week listing Mal’s weight.

  She was maintaining and still regaining weight.

  As much as he hated this process, hated everything about it—he couldn’t argue with results like that.

  She wasn’t cutting, she was maintaining her weight, and she wasn’t running herself to exhaustion.

  When he got out of the shower he spotted her day collar bracelet on the dresser, where he’d put it the day he’d moved back into the apartment. Despite knowing it’d gut him, he picked it up and closed his eyes as he remembered their collaring.

  The joy in her eyes when she’d asked to be his slave at their collaring.

  He kissed it and set it on the dresser.

  I feel like I failed you and I’m helpless to fix this.

  He wouldn’t ask her about coming home, though. He’d promised to let Niall, Doyle, and Doug do their thing.

  So far, they’d made steady progress with her, and he couldn’t fault them a damn bit for it.

  If it meant Mal could survive this and find a permanent recovery, Kel would keep agreeing to it as long as it produced healthy, sustainable results.

  Even if it grated on him that she’d be calling them Sir instead of him right now.

  He opted for jeans and a short-sleeved button-up shirt for tonight, even though they’d told him casual. He’d probably keep tonight short, unless Mal specifically asked him to stay. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to keep his emotions in check, and the last thing he wanted to do was start crying or something and make her feel like shit.

  Or worse, lose his shit.

  Her car was already parked in front of June and Scrye’s when he arrived ten minutes early, along with two other cars he assumed were Doug’s and Niall’s.

  As he walked up to their front door, Niall and Doug stepped out and intercepted him, immediately making Kel’s heart pound with worry.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  Niall held up a hand. “She volunteered to us she weighed herself before coming here, despite not needing to weigh in until tomorrow, an’ she’s maintained.”

  Relief whooshed out of him, nearly making him sick. “That’s good, right?”

  “It’s feckin’ excellent, but don’t make a big deal about it, eh? We don’t want her beatin’ herself up if she has a setback. She’s goin’ to start takin’ classes with June again. There might be a little adjustin’ to her diet as she burns calories, so don’t panic. We’re on top of it.”

  “Why are we doing this out here?” Kel asked.

  Niall and Doug exchanged a glance and Doug spoke. “She’s seeing me for a session tomorrow.”

  “Okay?”

  “How are you doing?” Doug asked.

  “I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.”

  Both men crossed their arms over their chests and gave him nearly identical Dom scowls. Which was pretty impressive, considering Doug was a slave.

  “You haven’t set up another appointment with me,” Doug said.

  “I’d rather focus on her.”

  “Well, I believe that,” Niall drawled. “It’s easy not to do yer own work when ye focus on her.”

  “What do you want me to say?”

  Doug reached over and patted him on the shoulder. “We want to know when your explosion is finally going to hit so we can help you through it. You haven’t hit bottom yet. Not really. We want to make sure we’re ready to help you up when you finally do.”

  Kel stared at them in disbelief. “You don’t think I’ve hit bottom?”

  Both men shook their heads.

  “You’ve been in survival mode,” Doug said. “How’d you spend today? Doing something physically intense and draining, right?”

  Kel glared at him, finally dropping his gaze when he realized both men had his number. “I’m fine,” he mumbled. “I want to get Mal on solid footing, then we can worry about me.”

  “That’s what you’re not understanding,” Doug said. “If you aren’t on solid footing, she never will be. You feed off each other, good and bad. She wants to fix you and can’t and feels guilty, like she’s letting you down. That means you feel guilty because you’re not fixing her. You two are cycling around each other and it’s keeping you both stuck, in some ways.

  “We want to get her to a point she asks you to move back home, but we’ll put our feet down and not let her do that if you don’t start putting serious work into yourself. I need you in my office next week, even if we have to do it after-hours, or we get together at your place to talk. If you don’t, we’re going to set a boundary with her that she reduces contact with you until you do. We won’t jeopardize her progress because you’re fighting us on this. Even she says this feels different to her than her previous attempts.”

  “Fine,” Kel muttered. “I’ll make an appointment tomorrow.”

  Niall nodded, and Kel finally followed them inside.

  “Look who’s here,” Niall called out.

  When Mal appeared in the kitchen doorway, Kel’s breath caught in a painful way. The weight she’d regained wasn’t a lot, and he knew it, but it was progress she was holding.

  The fact that he still saw a skeleton when he looked at her was something he’d have to get over. He didn’t miss the irony that it was like an indelible after-image imprinted in his mind the same way she said she still saw herself at her heaviest.

  But then she smiled as he walked over to her, and for the first time since this whole nightmare started…

  His heart raced as he finally saw his Mallory in her smile. It was a real smile, not a fake one, not a forced one. Also for the first time in months, she wasn’t swaddled inside a too-large maxi-dress and sweater, or sweatpants. She wa
s wearing a tunic he hadn’t seen her in before, and leggings, both of which looked new.

  “Hey, sweetheart,” he said.

  “Hey.” She was already reaching for a hug, so he held still and let her hug him, terrified to do much more than touch her back.

  “Hug me, Kel. I won’t break.”

  “I can testify to that,” June said from behind her. “She made me hug her earlier.”

  “Honey, I—”

  “Please?”

  He swallowed back his bile as he hugged her, still gently, because while it wasn’t as bad as she’d been at her worst, every bone he could feel reminded him of how precarious life was.

  Of how she still teetered on a razor’s edge, out of his reach.

  Helpless to save her.

  “I love you,” she whispered.

  He buried his face in her hair. “I love you, too, sweetheart.”

  All his anger at Niall and Doug melted away, replaced by shame that he’d balked at their request for him to come in and talk to them.

  Mal was his life. He needed to do whatever was best for her to help her.

  He was terrified to say too much, worried he might upset her. So he hung back conversationally all during dinner and let Doug and Niall guide the evening.

  One thing that Kel struggled and finally won a battle not to openly celebrate?

  Mal ate dinner. She ate in a way he hadn’t seen her eat since before this slow-motion portion of their nightmare settled in for a stay. She didn’t pick at her food, didn’t cut it into tiny bites, didn’t look self-conscious while she ate, didn’t shovel it around her plate as if she was eating but not really. She ate a slightly small but still healthy-for-her portion. She talked and laughed and seemed to be enjoying the conversation, and her food was secondary to her focus.

  She also finished it.

  It was enough to almost make him burst into relieved tears. When he realized Niall was watching him, Niall gave him a slight head nod and winked.

  Okay. Kel wasn’t happy about being away from her, but this was tangible progress he could wrap his head and heart and hopes around. She was actually eating differently now than she had been.

  Whatever the three of them were doing with her, it was working. He didn’t give a shit if someone wanted to argue it was the year-plus of work she’d already done with the other place that deserved the credit, or the latest change in medications—this was happening now, and only after she’d been working with Niall, Doug, and Doyle.

  All Kel cared about was the result. If it meant she called them Sir and leaned on them…well, fuck. It was working.

  May and Jim headed home first, a little before nine. That’s when Kel decided maybe it’d be better if he left, too, so Mal could talk with Doug and Niall, if she needed to. He hoped his smile looked right. “I’m going to take off, too, sweetheart.”

  “I’ll walk you out.”

  She laced fingers with him for the walk outside, and for a moment he could almost pretend all was right with his world. Once they were alone outside, though, she pulled him in for a hug and he was reminded once more how terrified he felt as he forced himself to hug her.

  “Can you come over to the house in the morning?” she asked. “To talk?”

  Fear trilled through him. “Of course.” His hands had settled on her ass, and he was once again painfully reminded of how much had changed. “What time?”

  “I need to be at Doug’s office at eleven. Would eight be okay?”

  He nodded. “Sure.” He managed to stop himself before asking if she wanted him to bring breakfast with him.

  “It’s not bad, I promise,” she said.

  “Okay.” He forced a smile for her. “I’m proud of you. They told me you’re maintaining your weight gains.”

  Her smile faded. “I promise I’m trying.”

  “I know, sweetheart.”

  “This time feels…different.”

  He reached up and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I hope so.”

  “Have you been talking to Doug?”

  “I’ve already been chewed out for lapsing on my attendance.”

  She gave him an adorable scowl but didn’t chastise him. “Love you,” she said.

  “I love you, too, sweetheart.” He left her with a kiss on her forehead, because he’d about hit the upper limit of his ability to deal, emotionally, and he didn’t want to cry in front of her.

  But as he drove back to the apartment, he wondered if he was strong enough to do this after all.

  Maybe that was the problem.

  Maybe he’d always been the problem.

  Chapter Eleven

  The next morning, Mallory awoke at seven when her alarm went off. She’d slept well, although her dreams had been unsettled.

  She sent her good-morning group text to her fairy godfathers to let them know she was up and moving and headed out to the kitchen to make her coffee.

  This was a morning routine she’d never take for granted again. The coffee they’d served at the center had been all right.

  But she loved the aroma of grinding the beans and then standing there as it brewed, nice and strong the way she liked it.

  She liked having two flavors of creamer in her fridge now, and not feeling guilty about it.

  And not feeling guilty about not measuring how much she put into her coffee, either.

  As she waited, she prepared her morning medications, snapping a picture of them and sending the text before taking them and logging her water intake in her app.

  It was a comforting routine, and far less stressful now than it ever had been when she was doing it on her own as a desperate way to keep control, or with Kel hovering over her like a shadow and pressing her to do things on his timetable instead of hers.

  And swallowing her emotions because she was worried about hurting his feelings more than her whole situation had already hurt him.

  She’d tried to do this with control on her own and now admitted she was powerless in some ways. There was a perfect balance in having the impersonal “sober companion” of the fitness tracker and app, and having the men at her fingertips via text, but also having a modicum of control within that framework. It was in her hands…but there was an invisible safety net.

  And a palpable accountability presence.

  Maybe that was something the three could help Kel understand—in a way, what she was dealing with did strike a lot of notes for her when she researched recovery. She was powerless over what emotions hit her and when they hit her. But she could control how she responded, something she’d failed to grasp before. Muting them with harmful coping mechanisms only made the problem worse.

  When she stopped trying to control her emotions, and focused solely on feeling them, acknowledging them, processing them, and instead maintaining a routine that wasn’t connected to her emotions, it soothed her.

  Leaning against the counter, she caught herself rubbing her bare right wrist and regretting not having her day collar there.

  I wish I hadn’t done that.

  Except now she realized if she hadn’t, if she hadn’t proven how serious she was this time, Kel might have tried pulling Master rank on her again to keep her inpatient.

  And she probably would have let him.

  But she missed her collar, its comforting weight. It was bad enough she no longer had her piercings, other than in her ears. He’d taken out her nipple piercings midway through her pregnancy, when they’d become uncomfortable. He’d removed the vertical clit hood piercing that morning during the frantic rush to get to the hospital, when she’d started feeling cramps, because he’d had the tool there at the house and wasn’t sure if they’d have one at the hospital.

  It’d only taken seconds for him to remove it.

  She felt completely naked, in some ways.

  Other than her wedding rings, there were no visible signs of Kel’s ownership of her, other than a few very faint scars that really couldn’t even be made out anymore.

  How lo
ng since he’d last marked her?

  They used to start every morning that way, with him marking her, either biting or, if they had the time, play, or even cutting. Something.

  A fresh physical reminder of his love and devotion, his ownership of her.

  A routine she’d cherished.

  When the sob hit her, she let it flow, remembering Doug’s order to her to let emotions happen.

  I miss being owned.

  Maybe Kel’s attempts to force her into a permanent recovery as her Master failed because she’d let his internal premise rule their dynamic—he felt responsible for her and her well-being, when the truth was that there were limits to what he could do, no matter how much he loved her and how good his intentions. The codependent to her addiction, to use that metaphor.

  And she’d been willing to assume that she was broken beyond fixing, if her devoted husband and Master couldn’t put her back together again despite his best efforts.

  Just a very subtle thing, so slight, and yet so glaringly obvious when she looked at it in retrospect.

  Once her coffee brewed, she poured herself a mug, added creamer, took a picture of it, logged it, and then sipped.

  Delicious.

  She walked down the hall even as her tears still flowed, her feet stopping in front of the nursery door.

  This had been her bedroom when she was still living with her uncle. They’d picked it to be the nursery.

  Reaching out with her free hand, she touched the door. “Soon,” she said, sniffling.

  She continued on to the bedroom to get dressed. Today was a little cool, so she picked the leggings she’d worn last night to dinner, one of Kel’s T-shirts, and one of his chambray button-up long-sleeved shirts on over that, unbuttoned. They hung off her, but they were his, and it made her feel better to wear them.

  Hopefully it’d make him feel good to see her in them.

  She was ready when he arrived ten minutes early and already had the door open for him. He carried his overnight bag she presumed held his dirty laundry, and she pulled him in for a hug and a kiss before he even set it down in the entry.

  “Will you let me do your laundry today? Please?” she asked.

  He was still trying to not hug her hard. “Okay,” he quietly said.