“Babe, I’ve been thinking about this all week. I just—I care about you too much to risk your safety.”
“So we’ll go back to vanilla. Like we did for a whole year. We don’t have to break up. We can just skip the kinkier stuff.” Even as I said it, even as my mind reeled, I knew that wasn’t what I wanted. But it was better than losing him. A lot better.
“I’m sorry. I was happy with what we had. But I think you were right, I was holding back part of myself. And now that I’ve been reminded of that, I don’t think I can go back to denying it. I wish I could, but I can’t.”
“Why can’t you see you don’t have to?” In my eagerness to convince him, I twisted in my seat, spilling my Caesar wrap onto the floor. “I like being your submissive. You like being my dominant. I know we had a bad experience, but I truly don’t see why this can’t work. Now that we know we’re both into this, it makes me feel we’re even more compatible.”
Justin sighed. “Please don’t make this harder than it has to be. I’ve been saying all these things to myself all week. But there’s just no getting around it. The way I used to be… the way I was with other submissives… I just can’t be that way with you.”
“But why?”
“Because I love you.”
Battling the sadness threatening to descend, I tried to muster a counterargument. “Are you saying that you can only dominate someone you’re not in love with?”
He was silent for a minute. “Yeah. I guess I am.”
Somehow, in the dizzying cocktail of confusion, alarm, and sadness I was feeling, irritation pushed to the forefront. “That doesn’t make any sense. There are married couples who live out their lives as dominant and submissive. As master and slave, even. Surely they must love each other.”
“I wish you’d never started reading those damn BDSM books. That stuff is fiction. This is real life.”
“But some of those books have to be written by people who are into this. And their characters find ways to make it work. The couples talk about it. They set boundaries. They figure out what works for them and what doesn’t. What’s that thing those books always say? Those three principles for BDSM? I think the first one starts with an ‘S’… ”
“Hon—”
“I remember. Safe, sane, and conventional. That’s what it is.”
Despite the misery etched in his face, a tiny corner of his mouth twitched. “That’s safe, sane, and consensual.”
“Exactly,” I said, holding panic at bay in my eagerness to make my point. “We just have to work out some way to make sure we’re doing that.”
He sighed again. “Well, safe went out the window Friday night. Sane was never on the table, as far as I can tell. I was insane to start this in the first place, and even more insane to push you to do too much, too soon. And I’m still not convinced about the consensual part.”
“It was,” I said, as firmly as I knew how. “It was a hundred percent consensual. Do you think I would have started reading all those stories if I wasn’t interested in them? Do you think if your hobby had been—I don’t know, stamp-collecting or archery that I would have read up on those things just to please you?”
He held my gaze for a moment and then nodded, conceding the point.
“I know I’m younger than you. I know I’ve had a lot less experience with dating, with sex. But I know what I want. I wanted to do those things with you. It doesn’t mean it was easy all the time, but I wanted to try. I still do. So please, Justin, please don’t question that again. That was my choice.”
“Okay, okay. It was consensual.” He slumped down in his seat, leaning against the headrest. “But as for the rest of it… I don’t think it was safe or sane.”
“So we’ll work on that. You’re an experienced dom. You’re a smart guy. I’m a smart girl. We can make it work. Remember? All it takes is practice?”
But Justin was in no mood to revisit our old joke. “I’m an experienced dom who let that creep put his hands on you and call you a whore.”
“But it wasn’t your fault. It was his. I’m mad at him, too. More than mad. Furious.”
“You think it’s him I’m mad at?” Justin said hoarsely. “I’m mad at myself. That asswipe has no power to hurt you now, but I still do.”
“But you’d never hurt me.”
“I did fucking hurt you! I took you to that place. And I knew how it made you feel. How you were scared. And embarrassed to be dressed that way. I knew all that, and I still made you do it because it fucking turned me on to see you squirm. To see your face flush with embarrassment. I was a complete bastard that night to the woman I love. What does that say about the kind of man I am?”
I stared at him, stunned by his outburst. He’d never said anything like that to me before. And what he was saying—I still didn’t believe it. He hadn’t meant for me to get hurt. He’d just meant to push me out of my comfort zone, and it went a little too far.
“You’re not a bastard, Justin.”
“Then let’s just call me a sadist. Same difference, really.” He was staring out the window, not looking at me.
“Please don’t say that about yourself.”
“Whether I say it or not, it’s true. That’s why I could be with Maddy. With the others. Because I wasn’t in love with them, I could live with the way I treated them. But I can’t do that with you, Lily. You meant he world to me.”
“So do you. Please, Justin, we can work this out. We can make sure what happened Friday night never happens again.”
“The only way I can make sure I don’t put you at risk is by staying the hell away from you.”
He abruptly turned and climbed out of the car. Alarmed, I scrambled out of my door. “Justin, please… ”
“I can’t, Lily. I just can’t do it.”
“Don’t decide now, okay? Like you made me wait and think about it for a few days about the birthday spankings. Just please, think about it over the weekend. I know there’s a way to make this work. I know we can do this. So think about it and… let’s talk next week. Please?”
I stared up at him through my tears, pleading with my eyes. With all my heart, I knew we were right for each other. I knew we were meant for each other. “I love you,” I said.
I’d said the three most important words in the world to him, but he responded with just two.
“I’m sorry.”
And then he left.
Chapter Fifteen
THINGS WERE PRETTY bad on Monday at work—even given the fact that Mondays were never much fun. I’d spent pretty much the entire weekend crying, so my face was red and splotchy and my eyes were bloodshot. Sara commented on it right away. I could always count on her to zero in on the thing that I was most upset about. She was reliable that way.
The day passed in a blur. My work suffered, and I could barely keep track of what was going on around me, at least until I got sent on a field trip. Our company was partnering with another company on some special project, and in the afternoon, eight of us piled into a van to go to a meet and greet. As a junior copywriter, I didn’t often go to those kinds of things, but they wanted someone from the PR department, and my immediate supervisor was out sick.
I did my best not to think about Justin as I went through the motions of being professional. At least I didn’t cry. Or attempt to find a kitchen and bake. But I felt like the shell of a woman, not a real one.
I didn’t really take in anything anyone was saying. Or remember much about the view as we drove back through the rush hour traffic. The only thing that really broke through my sadness was the screams.
The screams right before a car plowed into the side of our van.
* * *
“Lily? Lily!”
I sat up quickly from my seat on the exam table. Too quickly. I wasn’t hurt, but I was a little sore from the huge jolt when the side of our van had caved in. We’d been lucky, though. Alan had a broken arm, a few people had some cuts from glass, but we were all okay. Thank god the other car ha
d been moving slowly due to the traffic. Though it would have been nice if the teen driver had been watching the road instead of his phone.
“Lily?”
“In here,” I called, and a moment later, Justin pushed through the curtain separating my little area from the main room.
“Are you okay? Are you hurt?”
He was here. I couldn’t believe it. All weekend long there was just silence. He hadn’t answered my texts or my phone calls. And now he was here. All I wanted to do was to hug him, to hold him close to me. But he was too busy examining my limbs for injuries.
“I’m fine. Just a little shaken.”
“God… when they called and said you’d been in a car accident…” He trailed off, looking about as shaken as I felt. Justin was my emergency contact. Had Sara called him and not provided any more details than that? There’d been no need to scare him like that. I was going to give her a piece of my mind tomorrow at work.
“I’m okay. I’m sorry you had to rush over here.”
“Are you kidding?” He wrapped his arms around me, drawing me close to his chest as he stood beside me. “When I heard you were hurt, I would’ve walked here if I’d had to. Hell, I would've crawled. I was so worried about you. I love you, Lily.”
He stroked my hair as I began sobbing into his chest. It took me a while to get a word out. “Still?”
Justin kissed the top of my head. “Always. I never stopped loving you.”
“But you ended it.”
“Which had nothing to do with not loving you.” The emotion in his voice made his chest rumble. I could feel the vibrations as I leaned against him. “So please, Lily, let’s just forget these last few weeks. Let’s just go back to what we had before. No more … subcontracting,” he said, using our old codeword for dominance and submission. “Just you and me. Together.”
“I missed you so much,” I said, blinking up at him through the tears. And then his mouth descended on mine, and he kissed at the tears that had dripped down to my lips. I was right where I wanted to be, in his embrace, in his arms, and in his affection. More tears leaked as he deepened the kiss, and I never wanted it to end.
When he finally pulled away, he was smiling down at me. “So what do you say, babe? Can we go back tot he way we were before all this?”
“Oh, Justin,” I said, looking up into his piercing eyes.
“No.”
Chapter Sixteen
JUSTIN STARED AT me for a long moment. “Did you just say no?”
“Yes.”
He frowned. “Are you sure you didn’t hit your head in the accident?”
“I’m sure,” I said, one corner of my mouth rising slightly at his bewildered look.
“But you love me.”
“Yes, I do.”
“But you don’t want to get back together?”
I scooted back on the exam table so that I could see him a little better. Taking his hand, I said, “I don’t want things to go back to the way they were. To the vanilla way they were.”
“But… but it didn’t work out.”
“Some parts of it did. And the rest? The rest we work on. Think of how long it took us to get to know each other when we started dating. Remember how many weeks passed before we even spent the night together? And then once we did, how long it took for us to feel completely comfortable with each other in the bedroom? Hell, I don’t think I let you see me naked with the lights on until the fourth month.”
This time it was his mouth that curved upward. “Yeah, I remember. That was a long four months.”
“So, this will take time, too. The subcontracting part. It’ll take time, and we’ll need to go slower than we did before to figure out what we both like. And want. And need.”
“But I don’t need it, Lil. I just need you.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“I’m telling you, it’s true.”
“It’s not, and you know it. And it’s besides the point, too.”
“Why?” he asked.
“Because even if you can live without it, I can’t. Or at least I don’t want to.”
“Really?”
“Really. I want it all. I want to be with the man I love,” I said, and then I lowered my voice. “And I want the hot, kinky, wild sex that only he can give me. The excitement. The thrill. I want that, Justin. And you can give it to me—if you want it, too. I think you do, but I know I can’t make you. As you taught me, that doesn’t work. It has to come from you. But please understand that I want this. And I want you. Please, will you just think about it?”
He looked into my eyes for a long time. Finally, he looked down. And nodded once. “All right.”
* * *
“To a new beginning,” Justin said, clicking his glass against mine. It was Friday evening, and though he’d come by my place a couple of times this week, this was our first official date night in over a week. I’d given him a lot to think about, I knew, but I truly hoped he’d listened to what I’d tried to tell him.
“To a new beginning,” I echoed, breathing a small sign of relief. His toast seemed like a good omen.
Slowly, I sipped the deliciously sweet bubbly champagne, not wanting to get any on the cream-colored wrap dress I wore. When I’d waited and worried last night, hoping that tonight would be the night Justin would tell me if he was willing to give this another shot, I’d scoured my closet, looking for something he hadn’t seen me in a million times. This dress had been the outfit I’d worn when I graduated from college.
Justin had dressed up too, with a white button-down dress shirt and charcoal grey slacks. He’d greeted me at the door with a kiss—not a long scorcher, but not a quick peck on the lips, either.
We were sitting on his sofa now. The site of my first self-attempt at bondage and my first spanking, I couldn’t help remembering. Sitting here together seemed like a good sign, but I told myself to not get too hopeful.
Justin took a sip of the champagne and a hint of a smile crossed his lips. “I was up half the night surfing the internet.”
“What for?” I asked, cautiously.
“Ideas. Methods. Ways to play safer. There’s a lot of information out there, but most of it was of the ‘Sixteen household objects that can be used as paddles’ variety.”
Instantly, my eyes darted around his apartment, wondering if he had any of those items here.
Justin laughed. “Your whole face just lit up. I guess you really are interested in this kind of thing.”
“Which I think I’ve mentioned about a thousand times,” I complained, but I clinked my glass against his for good measure.
“Yeah. I’m going to do a better job of listening to what you actually say rather than what I think you’re trying to say. I did find some helpful stuff online. A guy wrote a really great article about incorporating both the dom and the sub’s preferences into your play and making BDSM work in the real world. I got a lot of ideas from that.”
“So, does that mean… we’re going to try again?”
“It does. If you want to.”
“I do. So much.”
He smiled when he saw the eagerness in my face. “Since we’ve got the consensual part down, I’ve been focusing on ways to make things more safe and sane. So yes, we can try again.”
“Now?”
“Well, I bought some chicken carbonara, and it’s warming—”
I stood up and undid my dress where it fastened at the side. It slid off my shoulders and dropped to the floor.
“Now’s good,” he said.
Chapter Seventeen
I WAS FACE up on the bed. Naked. Bound. And making secret tugs at the soft silk ties binding my wrists and ankles to the bedposts. It was a thrilling feeling to know that I couldn’t get away. Shivers snaked through my body, and I gyrated my hips in little circles, unable to resist.
A dark chuckle drifted toward the bed. Justin was enjoying watching me wait. Waiting for his touch. Waiting for his command. “So eager.”
�
�Yes, Sir.”
And I was.
Flickering candles were the only light, so I couldn’t see his face, but every fiber of my being was aware of his presence. He moved closer, and I couldn’t help but shift my hips again.
“Here’s what’s going to happen tonight,” he began, and it was as if my entire body strained to hear him. “First off, a new safeword. Several of them, actually. Colors. ‘Green’ means you’re good to go. ‘Yellow’ means you’re uncertain, you’re not sure you like what’s going on. Say ‘yellow’ at anytime, and we stop and talk about what’s happening. Say ‘red,’ and everything stops. You’re immediately untied, the lights go on, it all stops. Two minutes later, you’re wrapped in a fluffy robe and sitting on the couch eating your favorite chocolate. Got that?”
“Yes, Sir.” Inwardly, I was smiling. He was different tonight. Still sexy and commanding, but he seemed to be taking this a little less seriously. No, that wasn’t the right word. He was serious about my safety. But I also heard a note of humor and playfulness in his voice. Like the part about the chocolate.
“Good girl. You can say those at any time, but I’m not going to rely only on that. I was wrong before, to expect a novice to differentiate between what was too much and what was just mild boundary pushing. It’s too much to ask you to process a flood of new sensations and emotions in the heat of the moment. So tonight, and for the foreseeable future, I’m going to check in with you, every fifteen minutes. I set the alarm on my phone,” he said, gesturing to the nightstand. “And when we do pause, you'll answer honestly and to the best of your ability. Understood?”
“Yes, Sir.” He was looking out for my well-being which was touching. But even while he was outlining ways for us to communicate openly tonight, he was still so in control. So dominant. I loved it when he was being the tender and sweet man I first fell for, but I loved this side of him, too.
Wild Rush: A Bad Boy Romance Page 11