Chapter 11

CHAPTER ELEVEN

LUNA

T he moments before I was lucid were beautiful. I stretched awake, smelling Drake’s scent on the sheets and pillows beneath me. My ass tingled where his cock had filled it, and my skin felt alive where he’d scrubbed me clean. My heart felt light, my soul fulfilled, and as I came to, I had the thought that I was happier than I ever remembered being.

And then I stretched out and realized Drake wasn’t beside me. My eyes popped open and settled on his bedside clock. It wasn’t even 5 am. What the fuck?

I glanced toward the en suite bathroom, expecting to see light spilling from beneath the crack but there was only darkness.

“What the…?” I muttered, pulling myself to my feet, fully awake now. I grabbed a t-shirt from Drake’s drawer and threw it on, along with a pair of his boxers. I’d just reached his bedroom door when I heard it. The unmistakable sound of someone crying. Loudly, Incessantly. Heartbreaking, gut-wrenching sobs.

My heart raced as I pulled the door open. As I made my way down the short hallway, I recognized another undeniable truth. There was more than one person crying. One of them was Drake, and the other was female.

What in the ever-loving hell was going on?

I all but stomped the rest of the way to the living room and flicked the light on. My eyes followed the sound and came to rest on Drake and a woman who I quickly recognized as his mother locked in a tight embrace on the floor. They were both wailing loudly, sobbing their hearts out. Neither of them noticed my arrival.

I swallowed hard as a litany of possible explanations ran through my brain, none of them good. I didn’t announce my presence, not wanting to intrude on their private moment.

My brain registered the absence of Drake’s father and I swallowed the lump in my throat as I turned and made my way to the kitchen where I brewed both a pot of coffee and a kettle of tea. I contemplated breakfast, but decided that if my gut was right, Nobody would feel like eating.

When the beverages were done brewing, I stood in the kitchen and choked down a cup of coffee while I listened to the sounds of their cries dying down.

Finally their voices replaced the sobs, or at least interspersed with them. Setting my mug in the sink, I fixed a mug for Drake and a cup of tea for his mom, sucked in a deep breath, plastered on a smile I didn’t feel and padded out to the living room where Drake and his mom were now sitting on the couch, facing each other, clutching one another’s hands.

“Luna!” Drake gasped when I entered. He tugged his hands from his mom’s and wiped his cheeks with the back of his hands.

The sight of his tear-streaked face broke my heart.

“I didn’t hear you get up,” he said.

“I know.” I forced a smile I knew fell short of anything real and placed the mug on the coffee table in front of him before offering the tea to his mom.

“Oh thank you, dear.” She nodded absently, but didn’t reach for it, so I set it down as well, then took a seat on the other side of Drake.

“Is everything okay?” I asked carefully.

“No.” Hettie’s voice cracked. “No, dear, it isn’t.” She looked like she was about to start crying again. The pain on her face was too much to bear and I couldn’t help but look away.

“Drake?” I questioned, grabbing my Daddy’s hand.

He shook his head, the pain on his face a mirror image to his mother’s. “Dad had a heart attack,” he croaked by way of explanation. “He didn’t… he didn’t make it.”

“Oh, fuck,” I whispered, then clapped a hand over my mouth, thankful that Drake didn’t have a rule about cussing. It still wasn’t the most helpful response.

His mom smiled ruefully. “I’m not allowed to cuss, but that’s exactly what I was thinking.”

The horror and hopelessness on her face as she realized was a horrible thing to witness. I stared down at my hands and swallowed a sob of my own as I saw the reality settle on her face. Her husband, her Dominant, was gone. She could do whatever she wanted. There was nobody around to tell her no. Nobody to punish her for breaking rules. Nobody to give her stress relief when she started spiraling. She hadn’t just lost the love of her life, she’d lost so much more.

I turned away and shoved my fist in my mouth to stifle a sob. There was no holding it back. “Sorry,” I croaked. “I… um… I’ll be right back.” I hightailed it to the bathroom, and as soon as the door was closed and locked behind me, I collapsed against it, letting the sobs rack my body.

I gave myself a full three minutes to fall apart and then I straightened and stood, glaring at myself in the mirror. “Pull yourself together, Luna,” I spat. “This isn’t about you. Your feelings don’t matter. You need to suck it up and go out there and be there for Drake and his mom.”

I washed my face, blew my nose, and that was exactly what I did.

DRAKE

Luna was a godsend. All day, she hovered in the background, anticipating our every need. She called Master Derek and Jaben and let them know I wouldn’t be in to work that day. Called Chef Connor and arranged for meal delivery all day, called out of her own shifts and took the day off just to be there for us. She gave us space to talk and cry and didn’t try to make herself part of the equation but was always there with a fresh tissue and a kind word when we needed her to be. She was amazing. The perfect friend. The perfect lover. The perfect support. The perfect submissive. The perfect babygirl.

She answered calls and made them, for both my mom and I, and when Mom was ready, Luna helped her begin to make the arrangements for the funeral.

When Mom went into her third or fourth breakdown of the day, after a dinner that none of us really ate, Luna trekked over to the infirmary and didn’t come back until she had a sedative in her hand.

She served it to my mom with a glass of wine she’d gotten from I had no idea where. Her own suite, maybe. She sat on the floor beside the couch rubbing my mom’s arms and shoulders and crying with her until my mom was finally asleep.

When a soft snore passed her lips, Luna stood, sighed, and looked around with wide frantic eyes that eventually landed on me.

I stood there blankly, not knowing what to do, not knowing what I wanted or needed. I was exhausted, bone-weary, and my eyes burned from all the crying I’d done.

“Daddy,” Luna whispered, crossing the room.

The word sparked something in me. A need to take care of her that I couldn’t handle at the moment, and my face crumpled with fresh tears.

Luna didn’t shy away from my emotions as I’d expected. Instead she opened her arms and waited for me to step into them.

“I can’t believe it,” I whispered thickly. “It still doesn’t feel real.”

Luna nodded sagely. “It probably won’t for a while. Your body is still in shock. Your brain is still processing. Be patient with yourself and kind to yourself. Grief is a complicated process.”

Her psychology degree in the making was coming into play. “Yeah, okay. Thanks. I’ll try.”

I looked around the room for a place to sit, but realized all I really wanted to do was lie down. “I need sleep,” I mumbled.

“Yes, you do,” Luna agreed.

“I don’t know if I’ll be able to sleep.”

“That’s why I got an extra valium.” She grinned. And pulled a bottle out of her pocket, dispensing a pill and handing it to me with the same glass of wine my mom hadn’t finished.

I eyeballed it skeptically but I knew she was right. My body needed rest. My brain needed a break. I smiled gratefully, swigged the wine and swallowed down the pill.

“Good.” Luna offered a smile, but it didn’t reach her eyes. She took the glass and set it back on the table then took my hand in hers. “Come on, big boy. Let’s get you to bed.” She wrapped my arm around her shoulders as if I needed help to walk. I gave her the side-eye.

“Big boy?” I grumbled. “It’s Daddy to you.”

Luna just rolled her eyes and all but dragged me to bed. She took over the caretaker role and helped me into bed. There was no need for me to change as I still had on the sweatpants I’d pulled on that morning.

But I humored her when she took them off anyway and thrust a fresh pair at me. I let her help me into bed and when she climbed in beside me, the little spoon to my big spoon, I held on for dear life.