“Yeah.”
I smile so hard my cheeks hurt. I remember. He’d tried to console me by telling me they were rainbow Oreos, but of course I wasn’t biting. Try one, he’d urged. This one, pistachio, sounds like a good flavor for a princess. Or maybe purple? No, I’d wanted the green one. And it had been delicious. No more Oreos for this girl. But I don’t remember the last time I had a macaron either.
I sneak a green one out of the box and sink my teeth into it. Delicious.
“Pistachio still your favorite?”
I nod my confirmation, too busy with the crisp and the cream to answer properly. I offer the box to him, but he waves it off. Good, I’m going to eat every last one. Well, maybe I’ll share with Crispin. Or not. When I’ve devoured the confection, I lick my lips. “Thank you.”
“I wanted to do more for you, but…”
“This is perfect.”
I wouldn’t be able to accept something bigger. I’d feel like he was trying to buy my love back. But a childhood treat he’s remembered all this time? This I can enjoy. We sit in awkward silence, not sure what to do with ourselves. The Burkes aren’t known for their heart-to-hearts. Or, you know, talking. At all.
“I heard you and Mom got divorced. I’m sorry.” That’s what you’re supposed to say, isn’t it?
He scoffs and stares at a spot on the carpet. “Don’t be.”
Is that it? Is that all I get? For twenty-five years of suffering? When I think that’s all he’s going to offer, he turns to me, his jaw set. “Your mother is a hard woman, and I should’ve left a long time ago. If not for myself, for you girls. I’m sorry for that. For everything. How she talked to you. How she pitted you against each other. I should’ve done something. But I was stupid and weak and too wrapped up in my own issues. I owe you an apology for the way you grew up. You deserved better.”
I shrug. Nothing to be done, and I won’t berate him for his faults. We all have them, and he clearly feels like hell over his already. I’ll let him torture himself, though. I won’t pat him on the shoulder and tell him, No, no, it was fine, because—well, look at me.
“You sound like you’ve seen a therapist.”
“I have.”
“Our friend Dr. Glazer?” Otherwise known as that fucker who wanted to have me committed because I like some kink with my sex.
My joke makes him bark a laugh and shake his head. “No, you were on the right track when you threatened to have his license revoked. But despite your mother’s and my best efforts to the contrary, it looks like you’ve done well for yourself.”
“This isn’t my house.” Embarrassment heats my face. I start to regret talking to him and tighten my fingers around my phone in reassurance. Crispin’s a key stroke away. Money? He’s going to congratulate me on being rich? Because that’s what matters? That’s his standard? If that’s how he’s going to be, he needs to leave.
“I wasn’t talking about that, Rani. It’s a nice place, but I know it’s not yours. I meant Cris. He seems like a good man. Like he loves you a lot.”
My flush deepens, and I fiddle with the ring on my finger. “He is. He does.”
“Are you married?”
“No. He asked me though.”
“And you said yes?”
I nod, smiling. I did. I got out of my own way and said yes. We talk until Crispin comes down to tell me lunch is ready. My dad stands to leave, and I half-heartedly offer for him to stay and eat with us.
Relief washes over me when he says he can’t. I’m tired. I don’t know how much longer I can keep up the façade of being a functional, conversant person, and I don’t want him to see me any other way.
“But, if it’s okay with you, I could come back tomorrow?”
“I’d like that.” And I would. He lifts a hand, maybe to rest it on my shoulder or tousle my hair, but he doesn’t get that far and drops his arm with a quick shake of his head.
“Good. Same time?”
“That’s fine.”
“Good.”
He stands there, awkwardness personified, and I find it strangely heartwarming. I make my father nervous.
He mutters one last, “Good,” before turning on his heel to go.
*
I’ve been working the afternoon away when Crispin comes in to tell me time’s up.
“But I have—”
“You have to rest is what you have to do.”
“I’m not tired.”
“As soon as you stop, you will be.”
“I’m not a toddler. You don’t have to put me down for a nap.”
“No, you’re not a toddler.” For the first time since I was assaulted, he looks at me like he might want to get into my pants. Oh. “You’re worse.”
“You like me cheeky.”
“It means you’re feeling better.”
I save the documents I’ve been working on and set my laptop aside on the coffee table. Before I can toss the blanket off my lap, Crispin has scooped me off the couch, throw and all. I consider arguing with him, but I like being in his arms. Small, cared for, safe. He carries me upstairs to the bedroom we’ve been sharing since I asked him if we could, and lays me down on the king-sized bed.
I expect him to remove my slippers and settle me under the blanket, but when he’s taken off the sheepskin-lined mocs, he cradles my foot, rubbing my instep and staring at my socks as if they’re the most fascinating things in the world. The way he’s holding this part of me, like I’m precious, is enough to bring tears to my eyes.
We haven’t had sex since the weekend I came to New York, and I wonder if that’s what he’s thinking about, too. Probably not. I look better, but some of the bruising is still bad. It doesn’t hurt as much, but it’s ugly. Controlled, lovingly applied marks are one thing, but lingering evidence of trauma is another. Who wants to fuck a girl covered in black-and-blues from an honest-to-god assault? I’ve resigned myself to not getting any until I’m well enough to go home, even though I’d like to feel close to him. I want him inside me, the heat of his body warming me, the weight of him containing me. If I’m at his mercy, I’m not at anyone else’s.
“India…”
I hadn’t noticed, but his gaze has shifted from my feet to my eyes.
“Yeah?”
“Never mind.” He lays my foot on the bed, draws the blanket up to my chest, and averts his eyes.
“What, Crispin?”
“Nothing. I’m such a selfish fuck.”
I tip my head. How could he say that? How could anyone possibly say that? “For what?”
“You’re still all…” A wave encompasses the abuse I endured at the hands of my attackers before he rests his hand on my foot again. “I shouldn’t be thinking about…”
“You want me?” Hope blossoms in my chest, but guilt clouds his features.
“Of course I do.”
“This doesn’t…turn you off?”
“No.” His grip shifts from my foot, up my shin, over my knee, and up my thigh to where my hands are resting in my lap. His fingers trace the bones, and he circles my wrist, squeezing. “Does that hurt?”
“No.”
He repeats the motion on my other hand, and my breath goes shallow.
“What about that?”
“No.”
“I want…” He shakes his head.
“Tell me.”
“I can’t.”
“Please? Pretty please?”
He sighs and squeezes my wrists again, harder. It hurts a little, but in a good way.
“I want to strap cuffs around your wrists, tie them to the headboard, and make you come until you cry.”
“I want that, too.”
I expect him to question me or refuse, and I brace myself for disappointment. But I don’t get told to go to sleep. I get another squeeze of my wrists, and then he’s rummaging in the drawer of the bedside table. When he produces a pair of cuffs, I’m surprised. They’re a set from home.
He catches my expression and looks chagrined. “Told you I’m a
selfish fuck.”
“That’s not why you brought them.”
He blinks and shakes his head.
“Tell me why.”
“I’ve never put a collar on you. I can’t. And I’m sorry because I know you like it. You’ve told me so. But I thought if you were frightened, they might make you feel better.”
He’s been fastening them while he talks, and as the leather closes around my joints, the tension in my body unravels. “They do.”
He slides the last strap home and looks at his handiwork. Grasping the top of the blanket, he pulls it down over my legs and shoves it toward the end of the bed. When his eyes meet mine again, they’re smoldering. I guess he’s been feeling as deprived as I have. He strips me down to my bra and underwear and tugs me to the edge of the bed. My legs dangle over the side, and he sits me up.
He stands between my thighs and his touch is warm on my ribs; his thumbs meet up in the center of my solar plexus.
“You need to tell me if I’m hurting you. If I do, it’ll be by accident. This isn’t a test, something I expect you to endure. The sadist in me won’t be getting any pleasure out of it. So you’ll tell me and I’ll stop. I’m not waiting for a safeword. Are we clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
He takes my face in his hands and kisses me, his lips firm against mine while he cradles my head. After all this time, it still makes me melt. He loves me. It’s in every caress, every touch, the way he’s memorized where I’ve been hurt. His fingertips stroke against where the fucker pistol-whipped me, telling me, I know your weak spots and I could exploit them, but I won’t. I want to hurt you, but I don’t want to harm you.
I press into him, twine my fingers through his unruly hair, and tug. We kiss for a while, gentle in our hunger. When I take a sharp breath because the brush of his fingers sparks a stab of pain on the side of my ribcage, he pulls away.
“That hurt you.”
I nod and press my lips together. I won’t lie, but I’m worried he might stop. He strokes my cheek with the backs of his fingers, and I close my eyes. Wrapping his arm high around my back where the bruising’s not as bad, he holds me close, leaning in to kiss my forehead.
“I’m sorry. Do you want to stop?”
I shake my head and clutch at his shirt, a plaid button-down worn threadbare. “Please don’t. I want you.”
He pulls away to look in my eyes, measuring my sincerity.
“Please, Crispin.”
“Okay, don’t worry. I’m going to take care of you.”
He disentangles himself and swings my legs onto the bed. Easing me onto a pile of pillows, he cradles my skull and my back. The gesture—still my favorite—is so tender it makes my heart ache. He’s been taking care of me since the very beginning, whether I could admit I needed him to or not. When he’s satisfied I’m settled and comfortable, he takes my wrists and raises them to shoulder height.
“Okay?”
“Yes.”
He inches my hands over the fluffy pillows until they’re extended above my head, then he clips the cuffs around one of the dowels in the headboard. Once they’re fastened, his eyes are intense on mine. “Still okay?”
“Yeah.” It doesn’t hurt. The vague ache in my ribs from the gentle stretch feels good in a healing way, like I’m alive. He lays kisses on my temples, down my neck, and across my collarbone, firm enough not to tickle, but light enough to not be painful. He licks and sucks at the pulse point on my throat, reassuring himself.
When I’m officially boneless, he slips the cups of my bra under my breasts and runs his tongue around my nipples. They tighten under the soft strokes, and he suckles until I plead for more. He obliges, taking each one between his teeth and biting before sucking hard. He toys with me until I squirm, mewling in desperation, my body aching with lust instead of the aftermath of my assault. When he’s driven me up to the edge, he stops.
“Spread your legs, pet. I’m going to make you feel good.”
Making me come until I cry doesn’t take as long as I would’ve thought. After one orgasm from his tongue, one from his fingers, and one from actual sex I had to beg hard for, tears leak from my eyes. As much as I don’t want to admit it, I hurt, and Crispin will be angry if I don’t tell him. And something else—the sheer expanse of feelings welling to the surface after he’s made love to me—is driving my tears as well.
“Hush. It’s okay, you’re okay.” He brushes the tears from my cheek with the pad of his thumb and releases the cuffs, easing my arms down to my sides. Grabbing the blanket from the foot of the bed, he lies down beside me and cuddles me close under the warmth of the throw.
My lids get heavy, and the light behind my eyes starts to fade, my thoughts being dragged into silence as Crispin twists the ring on my finger, reminding me in yet another way I’m his.
Chapter Twenty-Two
‡
A week after we get back to San Diego from New York, Crispin asks me over dinner if I really want to get married.
“It was unfair of me to ask you when you were…” Hurt and vulnerable, he means, but I appreciate him not saying it out loud. “Anyway, I would understand if you’d changed your mind.”
I narrow my eyes at him and set down my knife and fork, smoothing my napkin in my lap.
“If you’re sorry you’ve asked after seeing what a whiny brat I am…” His face goes dark at my self-deprecating remark, so I flash him my ring. Distract ’em with something shiny; it works every time. “You’re going to have to man up and pry this off my cold, dead hand.”
“If that’s what you want—”
“It is.”
“I thought—”
“Well, don’t. I don’t keep you around for your brains, Ardmore. Besides, rule number one still applies.”
I never have to do anything I don’t want to do. Rey taught me well. Crispin smiles, bright and brilliant, and it lights up my heart. “Good. I want everyone to know you’re mine.” And that I picked him. He hasn’t told anyone yet, not even his parents, but I want him to. I want to tell the world.
A few months later, I still haven’t changed my mind, so our wedding is a formality we fulfill at the courthouse on a Tuesday morning between clients. I cater to Crispin’s sentimental streak by wearing an off-white vintage dress and a cage veil I affix in the cloudy bathroom mirror while standing next to someone I suspect is on trial down the hall.
“You look beautiful, mili,” Crispin says when I emerge.
“Thank you.” I have to bite back the dozen jokes I could make, most involving the patent ridiculousness of me wearing a white dress. Plaid or chartreuse might be more apt. We walk hand-in-hand down the hall to where an old, irritable, and possibly senile judge mutters his way through the barest of ceremonies. It’s perfect as far as I’m concerned, but Crispin looks vaguely despondent, if crazy-handsome in the suit he insisted on wearing. I would’ve been happy with his jeans and flip-flops, but he wouldn’t hear of it. Not his fairytale wedding, I suppose, but hopefully a surprise I have lined up for this evening will make up for it.
After we’ve been pronounced man and wife, Crispin kisses me and makes me laugh by murmuring some of the wicked things he plans to do to me later. I struggle against him, but he holds me tight and I protest with a light slap to his chest. “Crispin, stop. This is a house of law. This is as close to church as I get!”
That earns me a snort from Judge Grouch and another kiss from Crispin. After I change back into my work clothes, I tow Crispin out of the courthouse to where his car is waiting. He drops me at JVA, telling me he’ll pick me up at seven.
When he retrieves me, it’s in my car per my request, and I ask if he wouldn’t mind me driving, offering a lame excuse. “The restaurant’s in this weird part of town. It’s a pain to give directions. It’ll be easier for me to do it.”
I hope he doesn’t notice the tremors coursing through me as I take the keys. Half an hour later, we’re in a residential neighborhood not far from one of the best surf spots in the
county. I turn onto a street of well-maintained bungalows and pull into a driveway. Crispin must realize by now that we’re not going to a restaurant, but he doesn’t question me.
We get out of the car, and I lead him up the walkway and open the front door into a small but beautifully furnished house.
“We’re here.”
“And where exactly is here?” He’s looking around, no doubt for some identifying information, a photo perhaps. He won’t find anything. There aren’t any personal touches save for a framed takeout menu in the master bedroom upstairs.
“Well, the lease on my apartment is almost up, and I figured if you were going to be here more often, I shouldn’t make you drive so far to catch a decent wave. So welcome home.”
“You rented a house for me?”
“No. I bought a house. For us.” All that blood money I’d squirreled away has come in handy for more than the odd weekend of kinky sex. It’s bought me a home and a future with the man I’m finally able to admit I love.
“You hate San Diego. You’ve always wanted to go back to New York, and David Garcia…”
Yes, David Garcia hasn’t entirely given up on me. He’s still hoping to entice me across the country, despite my repeated and firm refusals. I don’t mind him asking. Honestly, I find it flattering. It’s his way of telling me he’s still happy with the work I’m doing, but it doesn’t matter how genuine the offer. I’m not going anywhere.
“It’s growing on me.” My teasing gets me a bite to the curve between neck and shoulder. “I can still go to New York. My dad wants us to visit, and David’s keeping me on as a contractor until they hire a real deputy commissioner, which he doesn’t seem in a big hurry to do. I’ll need to be there a lot. But I won’t ask you to live in Manhattan. You’d be like Crocodile Dundee up in there. Don’t pretend that’s not true. And if you’re here, my life is here. I’ll only ever be homesick for you.”
We’re still working out the finer points of who’s going to be where when and for how long, but I believe in our ability to work it out. We both have other commitments, but we’ve made our promises to each other and I have faith in our good intentions. I feel, for the first time in my life, secure.
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