He also insisted on sleeping in his own bed, which was a special kind of hell for me, him being so close and yet so inaccessible.
Sure, I knew I shouldfeellucky he was so determined to stick to this strict, Dexter-esque sex code of his because it meant he was a man of his word. But I was fuckinghorny, and one of the things I’d stupidly agreed to was not to masturbate without permission.
I hadn’t been able to bring myself to ask him for permission yet even though he’d told me I was free to ask and he’d most likely say yes.
No, I couldn’t figure it out myself, why I couldn’t ask, which I guess was his whole fuckingpoint.
Dammit.
That point being we had a lot of things to figure out together about whatever this was and what we wanted out of it and what we wanted to be to each other.
There was a 101 class scheduled for this afternoon that Jack had already signed me up for. He wouldn’t attend with me because it was for people who identified as both submissive and as non-binary or female, plus he’d signed us up for a couples 101 class for after dinner.
Damn him for being so rational and controlled.
It also meant no time for me to convince him to fool around between classes.
I had no doubt that if, for some astronomically improbable reason, I decided not to have sex with him while we were here, that he absolutely would be a man of his word and not pressure or force me or act like a petulant jackass toddler about it.
If sex didn’t happen—or if he said no to me—I hoped he was ready for me to cry or throw a temper tantrum. Honestly, I’d never felt this way about any other guy before despite the relatively short time we’d been talking about whateverthiswas between us.
Maybe because I’d never had conversations with any other guy the way I had with Jack.
Hell, Lilah liked him and, despite doing her best to find red flags, even she admitted he seemed like the real deal and encouraged me to pursue this with him.
“Why do I need to go to the 101 by myself?” I asked.
Again.
He earned brownie points for patience. “I’m not a woman. I’m not a submissive. You need to work on figuring out what you want and need, not just go by what I want and need. I’m serious—I’m never getting divorced again. I’d rather take my time and take things slow and suffer blue balls than rush things between us.” He glanced over at me, squeezing my hand. “I didn’t go through what you did as a kid,” he gently said. “They also have people on staff who you can talk to about that.”
I shuddered. “I don’t want to think about that,” I muttered.
Fresh in my mind was that long-ago afternoon. How we’d carefully made our way down the hall so we didn’t make any noise. The woman who’d sold us—practically given us—the camping gear.
The smell of the garlic and marinara sauce that washed over us when we’d walked through the back door of Mort’s restaurant.
The smell of cigarettes as a door creaked open in a dark bedroom while I huddled under my blanket, held my breath, and?—
I pulled my hand free and stared out the window as I tried to control my breathing, slow my pulse. Despite my best efforts to get over my past, sometimes things bled through.
“Em,” he softly said. “Where’d you just go?”
I shivered, wrapping my arms around myself. “I don’t want to think about that,” I said.
He sighed and reached over, touching the back of my hand, patiently waiting.
I finally gave it to him and he gently squeezed it.
“Thisis why you need to talk to people who aren’t me about all of this,” he said.
“I don’t want to spend our time together thinking about the past. Especially when it can’t be changed.”
Or paroled, but I didn’t say that part out loud.
“We’re close enough to the Ranch that if we need to make appointments for you to talk to people, we can easily get here. They might even have phone appointments. If what we mighthave together is to last, you have to face your past and your nightmares. They won’t go away; they’ll only come out in other ways.”
Logical Dr. Esmerelda Colefield, who was a successful surgeon, knew he was absofuckinglutely correct.
