Safeword, page 1
Safeword: Mayday © June 2023 by Candace Blevins
All rights reserved under United States of America copyright law, and the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.
The author expressly prohibits any entity from using this publication for purposes of training artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text, including without limitation technologies capable of generating works in the same style or genre as this publication. The author reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. All sexually active characters in this work are 18 years of age or older.
This book is for sale to ADULT AUDIENCES ONLY. It contains substantial sexually explicit scenes and graphic language which may be considered offensive by some readers. Please store your files where they cannot be accessed by minors.
Cover design © 2017 Syneca Featherstone and © 2023 Candace Blevins
First Edition June 2023
Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.
Thank you for supporting authors and creating an environment where they can continue writing by purchasing this and other books in compliance with copyright laws.
Candace loves hearing from readers! You can find her online at:
Website – candaceblevins.com
Facebook group – Candace’s Kinksters
TikTok
Goodreads
Bookbub
Stay up to date on Candace’s newest releases
and get exclusive excerpts by joining her mailing list!
Table of Contents
Preface
Blurb
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Epilogue
Bibliography
BUD Blurb
Excerpt
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Preface
I began writing Heather’s story way back in March of 2010, and I’m finally ready to publish it in 2023. I’ve come back to it several times, intending to finish it, but the ending to the second book just wasn’t there. I wasn’t happy with it, so it wasn’t ready to publish. This time? Everything clicked, and Heather’s story is finally ready for other eyeballs besides mine.
I enjoy writing about things I’m knowledgeable of — dance, theater, guns and other weapons, motorcycle racing, meditation practices, history, mythology, and the many facets of kink, to name a few of the things I’ve pulled into my novels.
For a variety of reasons, I know a whole lot about sensory processing disorder, so it’s natural for the subject to make it into my writing. I wrote about one end of the spectrum in the Wicked Inked duet, and this book covers the other end of the spectrum — someone who feels no pain, and who needs extra stimulation in order to feel alive. In order to feel anything, really.
Because I wrote a good portion of the first Mayday book in 2010, it doesn’t fit into the timeline of where my characters are in the most recent novels. If you’ve read Acceptable Risk, you should know it happens well before the events of that book. Specifically, it occurs after Safeword: Arabesque, and begins during the general timeframe of Riding the Storm. It’s fine if you haven’t read those books, but important to understand if you have, since Eric in particular has gone through some significant changes in recent years.
Blurb
Heather’s soul soars when she’s hang-gliding, skydiving, kayaking, or piloting a helicopter during search and rescue missions. She’s taken the term adrenaline junkie to a whole new level. However, she’s never enjoyed sex and never had an orgasm.
Instead of giving up on her, Kyle, a long-time friend who convinces her to be more, brings an experienced Dom in to help. Marcus explains she only enjoys extreme sports, so she needs to try extreme sex since the normal kind hasn’t worked. Marcus is all Dom, and helps Kyle bring Heather alive sexually.
Just when Heather thinks she has everything figured out, she learns the details of how it worked when the two men shared a girlfriend for years while they were in college.
Chapter 1
Heather felt bad for Kyle.
She’d tried so many times to convince him the problem was her and not him. She’d never had an orgasm and assumed she never would, but she’d come to terms with it long ago.
Kyle, however, wouldn’t accept it, and he refused to get off until she did, which meant he never came.
At first, she thought he went soft because Heather couldn’t get into it, but the last time they’d tried, he told her he didn’t deserve an orgasm if he couldn’t make her happy.
Why her easygoing boyfriend chose this topic to dig his heels in was beyond her. When she’d told him she could give him a blowjob and get him off, and assured him she didn’t need him to touch her while she did it, he’d seemed horrified at the idea she was okay with giving him pleasure when she received none.
She’d had this speech all prepared about how she could give him a few blowjobs a week, and maybe do the sex thing once or twice a week — as long as he didn’t expect her to enjoy it. However, after his reaction to her suggestion, she’d crawled inside herself with the knowledge she was about to lose the love of her life because something inside her was broken and she didn’t know how to fix it.
Should she tell him, again, she was more than happy to give him blowjobs as often as he wanted, and she’d even do the sex thing with him once or twice a week — but expecting her to actually enjoy it was asking too much? She didn’t know any other options.
But she’d chickened out and said nothing more, expecting he’d break up with her in the coming days.
But now, a few weeks later, she hadn’t lost him yet.
Unfortunately, he was trying again with soft music and candles while he licked her clit and pussy like it was supposed to magically turn something on in her. Heather found herself trying to find shapes in the texture on the ceiling in the flickering candlelight. She didn’t want to hurt his feelings but desperately hoped he’d stop soon.
Her mind drifted, and Heather pondered once again whether she should’ve allowed their relationship to move into a romantic one. They’d been friends for years before they started dating, and they’d been together three months before having sex. After another three months of dating with several failed attempts, she wondered what it would take to convince him she just wasn’t wired for it. She’d even tried to explain what sensory processing disorder meant, and how her time in a Korean orphanage, hungry and in a lot of pain, had made her turn her pain signals off when she was a baby — when she’d never given such personal details to a boyfriend before.
She’d let their relationship move to the next level because she couldn’t deny how much she loved him, but now she was worried she was going to lose him. He was her rock, her best friend, and she felt more at home in his arms than anywhere else on the planet.
Her eyes watered, because it was beyond time she accepted that she was never going to manage a long-term relationship with a healthy male.
There was no doubt Kyle loved her. He’d quietly seduced her for years, and had been a great friend who’d become so much more. She’d been determined to keep him in the friend box because she valued his friendship too much to lose him over sex, but he’d finally convinced her he loved her no matter what, and she’d gotten tired of fighting her own feelings for him. She’d stupidly hoped it might be different this time.
So here they were, madly in love with each other, but she was too broken to make it work.
Kyle kissed his way up her stomach, and she breathed in relief with the realization he was trying to call tonight’s experiment quits without anyone being upset it hadn’t worked. He maneuvered through the center of her breasts, gave her a p
Heather spooned into him and relaxed into his arms, but she silently wondered if he’d still want her once he figured out nothing would work.
Chapter 2
Heather breathed in the mountain air while she focused on the final safety check for a tandem hang-glide. It would be terribly easy to overlook things when the sky was electric blue and the weather was perfect, but she never skimped on safety.
She’d wondered why Marcus had suddenly wanted to hang-glide, but hadn’t asked too many questions. Sometimes the decision was immensely personal for first-timers, part of closing a chapter of their lives, or affirming life in a spectacular way. She was here to make it happen and not to act as therapist. Besides, Marcus was a psychiatrist, so she assumed he had people to talk to about that sort of thing.
Since he was Kyle’s best friend, she’d only intended to charge him what she had to pay for the tow-ride up, but he’d insisted on paying the price she listed online. He’d finally agreed to pay something between the two amounts, but only if she’d let him buy her dinner afterwards. Before she could turn him down, he’d suggested she talk with Kyle before answering him.
Not only had Kyle thought it a great idea, but he’d made it clear Marcus knew everything about Kyle, and he’d be okay with whatever they talked about while hang-gliding or over dinner.
She focused on remaining professional while she adjusted Marcus’s straps. Some people were uncomfortable with the places she needed to touch, tug, and pull, but he seemed fine. Strapping a stranger in is different than strapping your boyfriend’s best friend in, but Marcus seemed at ease as they talked about how it felt, how the weight would be distributed, and how he could — and couldn’t — safely reposition himself in flight if he became uncomfortable.
Marcus caught on quickly to her instructions on the ground, so before long they were being towed into the air by the ultra-light. The cool wind brushed her face, the details on the ground grew smaller, and Heather felt alive. Exhilarated. The planet below them, the air holding them aloft, the wind in her hair and face as she took in everything around them so she’d be prepared for whatever the sky threw at her. The cloudless day meant she couldn’t watch the air currents — she’d have to feel and sense them. Adrenaline pumped through her veins as she gripped the bar in her hands, sensing any changes while being hyperaware of the wings above her.
This was why she scaled mountains, hang-glided, and kayaked the most dangerous rivers: otherwise, there were very few times she felt much at all. Most of the time, Heather merely existed — thinking and being without experiencing the normal input people’s bodies are supposed to give them about the world around them.
When the ultra-light finally released them and she was piloting them through the cloudless cerulean sky, she came even more alive, and Marcus’s whoop of pleasure beneath her made her want to vocalize as well, so she did, and then smiled ear-to-ear as laughter bubbled up. She loved giving people new experiences. She knew how to calm a tandem rider when they freaked, but she so much preferred it when they got into it as Marcus was.
She made a few sweeping turns and he seemed okay, so she made some tighter turns to give him a bit more of a thrill ride.
Of all the things Heather did to get her adrenaline going, this was one of the best. Flying like a bird was incredible. Soaring over the earth, the wind in her hair, looking down at the tiny buildings and trees, the feel of the air currents lifting the wings, shifting her body to alter the flight path and accommodate sometimes constantly changing winds — this brought her to life like nothing else. If transmigration was possible then in her next life she wanted to come back as an eagle.
After keeping them in the air as long as possible, she lined up and brought them in for a smooth touchdown in the soft, grassy landing zone. She helped him out of the harness, and Marcus picked her up, spun her around, hugged her and kissed her on the forehead, and then put her back down before dancing a little jig with her.
He was positively glowing as he told her, “That was incredible! Thank you so much! How long until I could learn to do that without you?”
Laughing, she answered, “If you’re interested in taking lessons, we can talk. I didn’t know you might want to learn. I thought this was just a one-time deal.”
“That’s what I thought, too. You know, on my list of things to experience before I die, but I had no idea how spectacular it would be. I felt like a bird, soaring through the air. Just… wow.”
She grinned at him, happy she’d been able to give him the experience. They needed to get off the field though, so she grabbed the glider and started pulling it towards the break-down area. “I’m really glad you enjoyed it. You said you didn’t want me taking it easy on you, so I gave you a wilder ride than usual for a first flight, and you seemed fine so I didn’t back off. I can be more daring, but I wanted to be sure you had a good first experience.” She gave him another look from head to toe and back up to his eyes. “Most people are a bit weak-kneed when they first start walking around, but you, Mr. Stick-in-the-mud, are dancing.”
“I can feel my knees more than normal, but I wouldn’t call them weak. That was perfect. I wish Kyle could enjoy it, too.”
She grimaced. “Not everyone enjoys this kind of thing. He hikes with me, but he doesn’t enjoy heights.”
Marcus sobered. “Yeah, I know. I wish I could help him with it, but until the two of you got serious, he didn’t want any more help. He dealt with his issues enough to be able to fly commercially, and that was as much time and energy as he’s willing to give it.”
She stopped walking and looked up sharply. “So, when he asked me to take him hiking to a cliff, it was for me and not him?”
“A little of both, maybe? He wants to enjoy what you do.”
Heather shook her head. “He hated it, and not only did he refuse to get closer than fifteen feet from the edge, he freaked when I got within ten feet of it.”
“I know, but he wants to keep going in the hopes it’ll desensitize him. I suggested he might hook up like a mountain climber, so he’d know the rope would catch him should he fall. If he can get close to the edge while secured to a tree, maybe someday he can do it without the rope.”
“I thought psychiatrists weren’t supposed to treat their friends?”
“I arranged for a psychiatrist and a therapist I respect to work with him when he was working towards being able to fly commercially. He signed off on both of them being able to talk to me about anything, and we all brainstormed about the best way to help him. The therapist did most of the office work, but I went with him on his first flight. I can’t be in charge of his file, but I can be part of the solution as long as the lead medical professional and patient are both on board with it. He hasn’t been back to see either of them in a while, and I’m okay with us having casual conversations for now. If he’s going to push hard though, he’ll need to see the therapist again.”
Heather suddenly had a bad feeling. She reached the edge of the field and began pulling the glider apart to stow it, focusing on what she was doing as she casually asked, “You aren’t wanting to have dinner with me to talk about the problems Kyle and I’ve been having, are you?”
“I’ve been wanting to get you to take me on a tandem flight since the second time I met you. That was how many years ago? It’s about time I finally managed to make it happen. I would’ve done this at some point no matter what, but yes, I was hoping to find the opportunity to suggest a few possibilities. I have a decent amount of experience helping children and adults with sensory processing disorder, so it’s not like I’d just be stabbing in the dark.”
Heather didn’t respond, but kept working to properly break the glider down and stow it and all of its parts in the carry bag. Marcus continued after a few moments of silence.
