She grabbed his hand and wouldn’t let him pull away. When he finally met her gaze, she softly spoke. “You love me. And I know that. You were doing what I asked you to do. You didn’t punch me or stab me. If I was helping you work on the car, for example? What if I was helping you do that, and in the process you accidentally hurt me? Would you feel like this then?”
“That wouldn’t be deliberate. It’s not the same fucking thing.”
“It is the same thing.” She squeezed his hand. “It would be an accident. No different. The first time Kade drew blood on me I thought he was going to barf and cry, and I was praying oh, God, please don’t let him pass out because we were alone and I was tied to the bench. I love you, Seth. Trust me, everything you’re feeling, he’s felt. Only it’s taken him twenty years and we’re trying to cram it all into you in a few months. This makes me love you more, that you’re doing something so obviously unnatural for you because of your love for me. How could I hate you when you’re my life?”
“You love Kaden.”
“And I love you.” Her eyes brimmed with tears, but she looked away for a minute and composed herself. “When you went in for your hernia operation, who was there waiting for you in recovery?”
“You.”
“Who took care of you?”
“You.”
“If you’d come to Kaden and told him the news he’d knocked you and me over with, I would still be taking care of you. I love you. I love you as much as I love him. Yes, I have a longer history with him, have shared things with him that…” Her voice choked, and she held up a hand to make him stay silent while she recovered.
“I’m going to miss him like hell when he’s gone,” she eventually continued. “It’s going to rip half my soul out. If you weren’t here for me, I would fucking give up and die the minute he quit breathing. I’m still not sure how I’m going to keep going. All I know is you won’t let me die.”
Her voice dropped to a whisper. “We don’t have time for you to learn every single thing he’s learned about me in twenty years. You have to trust us when we tell you things. I’m telling you, this is okay. This is not a big deal. You’ve come so far and learned so much in the past few months, it’s amazing. It’s breathtaking. I’ve loved him as his wife for years. But from the moment I met you, I knew you completed me. I couldn’t tell you, and it killed me for so long.”
She looked away again, but he spotted her tears. “For all three of your weddings, Kaden made me promise not to say anything when they asked if there were objections. He almost forced me to stay home for the third one.”
It would have been impossible for Kaden to miss them—he was always Seth’s best man.
Seth felt his heart roll again. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“It’s okay.” She looked at him. “It’s done. We can’t get that time back.” She leaned in closer. “We have now. Right now. He’s still strong, and he’s still in decent health. Please don’t let guilt over something you don’t need to keep feeling guilty over ruin what time he’s got left with us. He needs to feel sure that when he goes, we’ll be okay.”
She laid her palm against his cheek. “I love you. I have to focus on him, I know. But it helps knowing I have you there to catch me when I get to the point where I don’t think I’ll be able to go on. You’re my safety net. And while it fucking hurts like hell to think of a future without him in it, I know that somehow, you’ll get me through to the other side and we’ll start healing together.”
“He said I need to learn to stand up to you.”
“Well, that’s easy for him to say. He’s had twenty years. But he’s right. I do tend to push your buttons more because I know I can. There are times I wish you’d stand up to me more.”
“Really?”
She nodded. “Yeah.”
“Not about this whipping crap.”
She wiped her eyes and laughed. “No, I was ready to play even dirtier to make that happen.” She laced her fingers through both his hands. “Come back with me. Please? Let’s take a shower and start the day over. There will be times you accidentally hurt me. I trust you, Seth. I know you don’t take this stuff lightly. I know you do everything in your power to make it as safe as possible. I trust you with the ropes even, because I’ve seen how closely you pay attention to what he tells and shows you. I can turn around and get out there right now and let you take a turn at me with the singletail, without hesitation. I know the risks. I know there is always a chance of injury. I also trust you will do everything in your power to be as safe as you can.”
“He’s right. I am a fucking pussy.”
“No, you’re a guy in a tough situation. You grew up with Kaden. He didn’t go from being nice guy to Master and Dom in a couple of months. I’ll never forget the look on his face that first night.” He knew from her expression that she was recalling the past. “He was so angry at me for hurting myself. But even more, he was scared. I remember I screamed at him that he didn’t know shit about me and he was fucking mean to make me promise not to do it and I don’t know what all I said. I couldn’t tell you if I tried.
“Then he grabbed me and spanked me. And when I looked up at him, he was just…well, sort of like you looked when you were trying to see how bad I was hurt. Horrified. I knew immediately he didn’t mean to do it. I knew he didn’t enjoy doing it.” She shook her head. “I think maybe that’s why I wanted him to keep doing it. Why I was able to promise him and keep it that time, mostly.”
Her voice dropped to a whisper. “He was the first person in my life who hurt me but he didn’t enjoy it. Do you think he just jumped into this with both feet? You know him. The only reason he did it was for me. Not because he enjoyed it. Don’t let him fool you. He was just as scared as you are now. Probably even more.”
“He sure doesn’t look like it.”
“That’s twenty years of experience.”
Seth took a deep breath, trying to buy himself time. “I meant it when I said I’m going to need time to just be vanilla.”
“I already told you, that’s fine. I’ll be honest if I need a session or spanking.”
He studied her. “How can you be so certain I’m capable of doing this?”
“Because I love you. I have more trust in you from nearly twenty years of friendship than I do in Tony’s twenty-plus years of being a Dom. He’s a great guy, and I consider him a friend, but he didn’t walk through hell and back with me.”
“I haven’t.”
“You are right now, aren’t you?”
Yeah, she was right about that.
She stood and offered her hand. “Please?”
After a long moment he stood, took her hand, and followed her to the car.
Later that afternoon, Leah made Seth go to the backyard with her. “You have to do this. Just two strikes, that’s all I’ll make you do. If you don’t do it, you’ll never want to do it.”
“Get back on the fucking horse, huh?”
“Well, spanking horse.” She grinned.
“Oh, fuck me. You are too much, girl.” He finally took the whip. “Okay, but it’s your ass.”
She turned, winked. “No, actually, it’s Your ass, Sir.”
He couldn’t help it. He hardened in his jeans. Fuck, that was one button he didn’t mind her being able to push.
She knelt on the ground while Seth tried to shake the tension out of his arms. After he couldn’t put it off any longer, he threw.
He nailed her perfectly, right in the middle of her ass.
He struck again, another perfect hit.
She sat up and turned, looked at him. “You okay?”
He nodded. “Yeah.” He hesitated. “Do you want a few more?”