I held her closer to me, and she let her head drop down on my shoulder again. She started nodding off, so I took her unfinished coffee and set it on the table next to me so it wouldn’t spill. In no time, she was out cold again.
I couldn’t sleep. Not with thoughts of what I might find once I started digging into her history racing through my head. Since she was still sleeping, I finished off her cup once my own was gone. Hours passed. Hunter and Tallie’s father came and went from the waiting room. Kade came back, looking rested and not strung out, bearing more coffee and some pastries for those of us who weren’t trying to expel a tiny human from our bodies.
Finally, Harper Paisley Fielding made her first arrival, at once both unexpectedly early and fashionably late—or maybe more than fashionably late, considering she’d put her mother through more than seventeen hours of labor. The little girl had all her fingers and toes and a shockingly full head of dark brown hair, not to mention a set of lungs that should do her Southern mama proud.
Even though I hadn’t slept a wink, I waited until little Harper was in the nursery getting cleaned up and having a few tests run so Tori and I could take a look at her through the window. Once we were there, I realized it was a perfect opportunity to get a selfie, like Greg had commanded.
“Turn around so we can get a picture with the babies in the background,” I said to Tori.
She yawned. “Why picture?”
“Because it’s a big moment.”
“Oh. Oh.” Realization dawned in her eyes. She turned and sidled up alongside me.
We put our arms around one another’s waists, and I raised my phone.
A nurse knocked on the window before I could snap it.
I turned around.
“Which baby?” she mouthed through the glass.
Even better. I pointed toward Harper’s bassinette. The nurse picked her up and carried her to the window, holding her up so the two of us could pose with the baby in the background. I pecked a kiss on Tori’s cheek as I snapped the shot.
She gave me a goofy expression. “Crazy man. You need sleep.”
“You have no idea how badly.”
We thanked the nurse and waved good-bye, and then we headed home. I collapsed on the bed almost the second we walked through the door, still fully clothed. I didn’t even bother to take off my shoes. Tori crawled up beside me and lay down in my arms, using my chest as her pillow. In no time, we were both out cold, despite the fact that the sun was warming us as it shined down through the window.
NOW THAT THE baby was here, Tori wasn’t spending anywhere near as much time with Tallie as she had been before. That meant I hadn’t had much time to research her porn films, because I had no intention of doing it while she was sitting in the same room. The last thing she needed was for me to pull one of those up and have it send her into a panic. I might have been putting it off because of the nauseating factor, too, in the several days since Harper’s birth.
But now Tori and I were set to fly to Portland tomorrow to spend a week with Babs and Katie, and as soon as we came back, training camp was due to start. I would only have so many opportunities to do this, and at the moment, Tori was gone to the ballet studio to dance during some open hours when it wasn’t being used for some class or another. She’d been spending more and more time there, getting back into the swing of things. I figured she wanted to get in as many hours in front of the barre as she could before we left for Portland.
So I took out my laptop and pulled up a free streaming porn site. In the search bar at the top, I typed in Viktoriya. Sure enough, dozens of hits filled my screen.
The top video had been viewed more than twenty-one million times. The video’s description read Russian slave bondage fucked with baseball bat. It was tagged with more than a dozen search terms, all of which made me want to beat someone bloody. But I forced myself to click Play.
It was only a short clip from what was sure to be a much longer scene, but in the two minutes it was on my screen, everything inside me knotted up.
Instead of giving into the urge and puking, I forced myself to click on the next clip.
And the next.
And the one after that.
For over an hour, I watched as Tori was strangled, whipped, gangbanged, deep throated, caned, bound, gagged, and violently fucked in every way imaginable.
And worse. So much worse.
Watching it was so painful and debilitating it left me numb.
I turned off my computer.
Thought about tossing the whole thing in the trash.
I’d felt the need to understand what Tori had been through. Now I knew.
What I didn’t know was what to do about it.
RAZOR WAS ACTING unusual.
I wasn’t sure if it was due to the hockey season getting ready to start or if it was more because of all the things we were having to do to prepare for our interview with the immigration people. For all I knew, it could be something else entirely.
All I was sure of was that he wasn’t himself.
Usually, he was good-natured and laughing. Now that we were in Portland to visit his friends and have our honeymoon, such as it was, he was grumbling and surly. It had started yesterday, actually. Maybe it was the stress of taking this trip right before his training camp was set to start. Or it might come down to the fact that he was tired of being my husband and wished he’d never made the offer to begin with. Our new sexual arrangement was better than what we’d been doing before, but it could hardly be satisfying to him, and as of yet, I’d made very little progress at all with the treatments the physical therapist had prescribed.
Any way I looked at it, however, I was typically the one in our relationship who was grumbling and surly, or at least more so than Razor was. I didn’t know what to think of this change in him, or if there was something I ought to do to help him get back to normal.
As we came around the corner to the baggage claim area, Razor tightened his grip on my hand.
“You’re not nervous about hanging out with Babs and Katie this week, are you?”
I shrugged, hoping he wouldn’t notice how anxious I truly was. “It’s fine.”
“It’s not fine. I keep thrusting you into different parts of my life even though you’re not prepared for them.”
Before I could reassure him that I understood and tell him not to worry about me, he saw his friend and waved.
Babs came over to us, grinning.
Razor released my hand, and the two of them hugged in the way men do, complete with a lot of back slapping, laughing, and shoving each other around. I did my best to be invisible. The last thing I wanted was to end up in the middle of a hug like that.
But when they separated, Babs smiled at me and held out a hand to shake. I took it—tentatively, in case he intended to leverage that grip and drag me into a big hug. He merely shook it, though. “We didn’t get the chance to properly meet at the wedding. I’m Jamie.”
I reminded myself to breathe. “Tori.”
“Glad you two could come.”
The next thing I knew, the three of us went to the baggage carousel with the two of them talking and laughing as if they saw each other every day. They picked up our luggage, and Razor reached for my hand again.
“Katie’s making dinner,” Jamie said as we walked out to his car. “And Levi’s coming over. No Koz, though,” he added, giving Razor a sideways look. “I hope you brought your skates.”
“Wouldn’t go anywhere without them this time of year.”
“I don’t know if you brought anything with you to dance in,” Jamie said to me. “But if you want to, Katie’s got plans to take you to a friend’s house. Brie’s got a dance studio in the basement. She might even be able to convince Devin Shreeve to stop by...”
I nodded, even though I’d stopped breathing for a moment. That seemed to be enough, as the two of them kept talking, leaving me to my thoughts as we loaded everything into Jamie’s car and climbed in. I knew who Devin Shree
ve was. He’d come to my school one semester and choreographed an entire production. He’d cast me as the lead, and I’d worked side by side with him for months. But then the day of the performance, he’d said something that had caused my insides to freeze.
If you do well enough with this, you won’t need to do your other work anymore.
That was all he’d said, nothing more and nothing less. But it had been enough for me to realize he knew what I did with my weekends.
Somehow, I’d gotten through the production without falling apart, but the whole time I’d been on the stage, I’d wondered who else out in the audience knew. Were they thinking of the films they’d seen me in? Were they imagining me with my clothes off, thinking of all the things they’d like to do to me? Was Devin?
He’d brought flowers to my dressing room afterwards, as is tradition in the ballet. You were fantastic tonight. You brought down the house. I meant what I said, you know. I’m sure I can get you some work if you’re interested. But I’d pushed past him and hurried home, and I’d done my best to forget about him.
Not that anything he’d done or said was wrong. It was the simple fact that he’d recognized me, and he’d been in a position to tell the directors of my school if he’d wanted to. For all I knew, he was the one who had informed them of my extracurricular activities.
He probably wasn’t. I was almost positive that it had been Jason Hirschmann, who’d been my most frequent partner at school. There had been too many Mondays when I’d come back to the studio too sore from the weekend’s shoots to get through a rehearsal without him realizing something was wrong. I was good at hiding my pain from a distance but less skilled at disguising it from someone who was up close and personal. Jason had been as close as anyone other than the men who’d starred opposite me in the shoots. I was fairly certain he’d known for more than a year before he’d finally said something. But the end of my schooling had likely come about thanks to Jason and not Devin.
I was still in the process of mulling over the idea of having some form of contact with Devin while Razor and I were in Portland when Jamie turned into a driveway and pulled into the garage.
I got out in a daze while Razor and Jamie unloaded our bags, and I followed them inside. I’d barely made it through the door before Katie was launching herself at me and wrapping me up in a hug.
“I can’t even tell you how glad I am you two came to visit,” she gushed. “I have to be honest. I never thought Razor was the marrying sort, so I’ve been absolutely dying to get to know you.”
She took my hand and led me into the living room. I looked over my shoulder at Razor as we went. He winked and nodded encouragement.
I could do this. I’d spent plenty of time with Tallie, and I actually liked her.
Yet somehow, the thought of getting to know more of Razor’s friends terrified me as much as trying to talk to the counselor.
So far, none of those things had killed me.
AFTER DINNER AND an evening spent with lots of talk and laughter—in which I’d only felt moderately out of place, surprisingly, and laughed more than I could remember laughing in a very long time—Jamie’s brother, Levi, was ready to drive Razor and me to the hotel we would be staying in this week.
“You really can stay here,” Katie said as we were on our way out the front door with Levi. “I know I already told you that. But it wouldn’t be an inconvenience at all.”
Razor shook his head. “You two are newlyweds. So are we. I think we all know it’s better for us to go to a hotel.”
“Truth,” Jamie agreed, and Levi snorted in laughter yet again. They all had the sort of relationship that led to a lot of teasing and good-natured laughing at each other. I’d never really had anything like that before.
Part of me had been jealous of it all night. Another part of me had been trying to fly under the radar so they wouldn’t poke at me.
It hadn’t worked. Before long, I had been on the receiving end of any number of jokes.
What surprised me about it most of all was that I’d enjoyed it. I still wasn’t comfortable enough with them to retaliate. Maybe someday. Still, they’d made me feel part of things, a piece of the puzzle that fell into place instead of one being forced into the wrong position.
Katie pouted. “Fine. Be that way.” She turned to me, then, and took my hand to stop me. “But I’ll come pick you up when the guys go to the rink, okay? We’ll do something fun together.”
I nodded and let Razor hold the door open while I got into the car. Ten minutes later, Levi dropped us off at the hotel. Razor got us checked in, and a bellhop helped us transport our bags up to the room.
Once we were alone, Razor collapsed on his back on the king-sized bed. “I like Portland. Always did. But I sure as fuck didn’t miss all the damn bridges in this city.”
I wasn’t sure what I’d been expecting him to say, but that definitely wasn’t it. I laughed—couldn’t help it. The laughter bubbled up inside me and boiled over before I could put a lid on it, much as it had been doing all night. My stomach ached from all the laughter, but it was the most delicious kind of ache.
“You are so damn beautiful when you laugh,” he said. “You have no idea how good it is to hear it. To see it.”
He had no idea how tingly it made me feel to hear those words from his mouth while he was looking at me like he’d never seen anything he wanted more. The tingles spread from my aching abs out to my fingers and toes, and everywhere in between. He kept watching me with a sense of wonder in his eyes, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t make the smile go away.
“Come here,” he said, and he held out a hand for me.
I crossed over and let him tug me down beside him on the bed. He didn’t waste any time in kissing me once he had me where he wanted me, doing it slowly, taking it deep enough that it made my head swim and my toes curl.
“Was today awful for you?” he asked, teasing his fingers through my hair.
“Not awful. I like Katie.” And it wasn’t even a lie to say so. It’d been a long time since I’d had female friends. Now I had Tallie and maybe Katie, too.
“Yeah. But this isn’t your kind of thing. I know that.”
“Not awful,” I repeated. Especially because Razor’s mood seemed to have improved dramatically since we’d been around his friends. He was acting more like himself, which left me feeling less self-conscious. Maybe his mood earlier hadn’t had anything to do with me, after all.
“Was it maybe okay?” He pecked me on the lips. “Or even good? I know you laughed, but were you just playing along, or did you really enjoy yourself?”
I wasn’t satisfied with just a quick kiss. “More than okay,” I said, lifting a hand to cup the back of his head and drag him back down to me. “Fun.”
Fun. It was the truth. I’d had fun.
His smile came through in the way his lips pressed against mine, but in no time, it turned from a sweet, laughing kiss to something needier. He slid his tongue along the seam of my lips and swept it inside my mouth as soon as I opened for him.
I hooked one leg around his, tangling our limbs to match our tongues.
He nibbled on my lower lip. “I want another chance to try to make you come.”
I was still convinced it was a lost cause, but he hadn’t given up in his efforts. Not in the least. Although, I did have another idea that might kill two birds.
“I need to practice with dilator,” I said. “You can help.”
His clear eyes turned a deep midnight blue. “You’re sure?”
I nodded. “Positive.”
“Where’d you pack them?” He was already up and heading for my suitcase.
“In blue drawstring bag.”
While he rummaged around for the dilator set, I got up and went into the bathroom to wash up. By the time I came out again, naked, he’d located the bag in question and the tube of lube I’d packed next to it. His eyes roamed over me, taking in every inch of my body. It shouldn’t have affected me. Not like
this. Millions of men around the world had seen every tiny pore of my skin. They’d gotten off while watching me. But even though I should have been immune to the sensation of being looked at, this was different. He wasn’t acting like he owned me. He wasn’t trying to use me for his own purposes.
I swallowed past the butterflies that were stealing my ability to speak and crossed over to him. When I reached for the drawstring bag, he handed it to me, his fingers brushing mine in the exchange.
“Tell me what to do,” he said, stripping his shirt over his head and tossing it behind him. “Tell me what you need.”
“Touch me, first,” I said. “Before dilator.”
My therapist had encouraged me to spend a good amount of time getting in the right mood before attempting insertion. That part would definitely be easier with Razor’s help and some foreplay. Yes, it was true that I’d once told him I didn’t need foreplay, and now I was asking him for it. The fact was, for a long time now, foreplay hadn’t done anything to eliminate the pain I felt, but now I was starting to believe there could be a solution.
Even though I’d had some difficulty with achieving arousal when practicing on my own, I’d still managed to move up to the second dilator in my set. That said, I was supposed to be the one inserting the dilators at this point so I could control the depth and angle, stopping if it grew too painful.
But Razor had given me no reason to believe he wouldn’t stop if I needed him to. He’d given me every reason to think he would treat my body with more care than I often did, myself.
It felt right to ask him for help at this juncture, and there was no doubt he was eager to do what he could.
“Touch you?” he repeated.
I nodded, my eyes on the broad expanse of his chest. Some men looked better with their clothes on. While there was no denying he cleaned up really well and filled out a suit better than most men I’d ever seen, he was a man who improved without a stitch of clothing on his body.
He was halfway there. I tossed the bag and lube on the bed, then reached up and splayed my hands over his ribs. His abs jumped to life under my touch, rippling before finally settling. I slid lower, inching toward his waistband. “I want you naked.”
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