I peeked up at him and felt a smile tug at the edges of my lips.
“Will you sit with me?” he asked. “So we can talk?”
Something about him had changed as well. He looked different. Acted differently. Less certain of himself.
I wondered if it was my imagination.
The weekday me would tease him. The me of last week would answer with a snappy comeback.
But I’d spent the last two and a half days giving in to my more primitive desires, and those desires didn’t include the voicing of snappy comebacks.
He knew that, of course.
“I had hoped you would be more”—he paused, looking for the word—“uninhibited once the collar came off.”
Okay, that was too much.
“You think I was inhibited this weekend?” I asked. “What part would that have been? When I was bent naked over the whipping bench? Or was tied to your padded table?” I tapped my finger to my forehead. “Oh, I know. It was the nipple clamps, wasn’t it? Definitely the nipple clamps.”
I didn’t have a chance to get to my next sassy comeback. I took a deep breath, gearing up for a nice teasing launch into Saturday night’s activities, when his hands took my face and he pulled me close for a long, passionate kiss.
“There you are,” he said when our lips parted, his hands still on either side of my face. His eyes gazed steadily into mine. “I knew you were in there somewhere.”
I ran my hands through his hair, tugging at the tousled strands. “I never left.”
“I know,” he said. “I just feared you wouldn’t talk. That this would be awkward.”
“Give me a few minutes. I just need to”—I wrinkled my eyebrows—“is adjust the right word?”
“‘Adjust’ is just as good as any,” he said, pointing to the couch. “Sit with me? It seemed to help Friday night.”
He sat down first, patting the spot next to him. “Put your feet in my lap. I’ll give you a foot rub.”
“I’m tempted to say you’ve given me far too much already.” I settled myself onto the couch, placing my bare feet in his lap. “But I’m a sucker for a foot massage.”
He smiled and took my left foot, his long fingers magical as they stroked between my toes and tugged them. “I’ve given you far too much? How is that?”
“By letting us be us,” I said. “However we choose us to be.”
“Does that mean you’re not going to throw your hands up and tell me you don’t want my collar anymore?”
“Of course not. Why would you think that?” I asked.
He worked silently for a few minutes, a frown marring his expression. “I wondered if I was too rough, too hard. That you would decide you didn’t want me. Not every part.”
“That’s what you wondered?”
“Yes.”
I had to tell him my fears. I had to be honest. He was working so hard to be honest with me. “I feared you wouldn’t want me. That you’d decide training me was too much work. Not worth it.” I swallowed the lump in my throat. “I messed up so much.”
His hands stopped. “It was our first weekend. I was harder and more demanding than I’d been before. I’d have been more surprised if you hadn’t messed up.”
“Really?” I felt better for some reason.
“I told you that Friday night,” he said.
“Right, and an hour or so later, I messed up again.”
“I need you to be honest with me,” he said, restarting with the rubbing. “Not letting you swallow, how did you feel?”
“Honest?”
His only answer was a raised eyebrow.
“I was so afraid I was going to gag and spit everything out on you,” I said, remembering. “And I felt so bad for not answering and knowing I’d disappointed you. I hate that feeling.” My voice dropped a notch. “But then there’s a certain power in knowing how strongly I affect you. Knowing you wanted to wake me up. Had to wake me up.”
“Yes.”
“But to turn that power back over to you, to give you free rein . . .”
He smiled and waited for my response.
“I love that part,” I finished.
“The actual punishment, though?”
“I didn’t love that part,” I said, then noticed his mouth start to open. “I know it’s punishment. I’m not supposed to.”
“Was it effective?”
“Yes.”
“Then it served its purpose,” he said. Then he added, “Why didn’t you answer?”
“My brain thinks too much,” I said. “I kept thinking about how I should answer, how you wanted me to answer. What would happen if I said the wrong thing?”
“The only wrong thing was what happened.” His thumbs swirled over the bottom of my foot, pressing and rubbing the spot right under my big toe. “It’s not often I’ll give you a choice on the weekends, but when I do, I expect you to make a decision. You could have picked anything—even your hand.”
“If I’d said I wanted to ride you?”
“Did I give you any stipulations?” His eyes were dark. “I simply wanted you to choose.”
An image of us moving together floated to my mind. “And if I’d asked you to make love to me?” The way he’d burst into my room didn’t mesh with the image. I doubted I would have asked him to make love to me, but I still wanted to know what he’d have done.
He lifted my foot to his mouth and kissed the underside. “It would have been a very different ending.”
“You would have done it?”
“Yes,” he said. “If that was your choice.”
“Oh,” I said, disappointed in myself once again.
“Abby,” he said, as if sensing my sadness. “Don’t let one mistake weigh you down. It’s a learning experience.”
“But it was a rare occasion, and I blew it.”
“And you’ll blow it again. I’ll blow it sometimes. We learn. We move on.”
He switched to my other foot, slowly working his way from the top to the bottom.
“Thank you for the poem,” I said. His reciting of “Because She Would Ask Me Why I Loved Her” had been just what I needed to calm my fears early Saturday morning.
“You’re welcome.”
Felicia and Jackson’s new house was beautiful. It had five bedrooms, five full bathrooms, three half baths, and a large rooftop deck. I spent most of my lunch hours and many of my evenings going to furniture stores, antique dealers, and designer fabric makers. Felicia was an astute decorator. She knew what she wanted and, most of the time, got it. Of course, being engaged to one of the country’s most well-known football players helped.
Yet there was a certain sadness overshadowing my time with Felicia. We had been neighbors for years, and it was hard to believe that in less than two weeks, she’d be gone. When I wasn’t with Nathaniel, I’d be all alone.
Unless . . .
No, I wouldn’t even think that. It was much too soon to even think about moving in with Nathaniel. Even if he wanted to.
Right?
What’s the big deal? I asked myself. I mean, you will probably be at his house most of the time after the wedding anyway.
Still . . .
Best not to push it, I decided. Everything was still too new for both of us.
“What has you thinking so intently?” he asked as he opened the passenger’s-side door. “Abby?” he asked again, holding out a hand for me.
“Just thinking,” I said. His hand was warm and firm around mine. “Nothing in particular.”
“Remind me to ask you something about next weekend,” he said as we climbed the steps to the front door.
“Next weekend?” I looked up at him. He didn’t usually tell me his plans for the weekend. “What about it?”
His hand squeezed mine. “Later.”