I revel in the quiet and soak in his calm. As if just by being in his presence helps soothe me and dampens the noisy chatter in my soul. No matter how crazy the world around him, he is always safely within the center of the storm, the calm and peaceful eye of the hurricane.
The anchor that prevents everyone else from breaking loose from their moorings, going adrift, and crashing into the rocky shoals.
Especially me. I didn’t realize how emotionally untethered I was until he reached out and pulled me to safety.
My soul has healed in infinite ways I never dreamed possible with his love. Just because I’m his Master doesn’t mean he doesn’t own me, too.
At home, I park in the garage and my good boy waits for me to get out and walk around to open his door. It’s a protocol I insisted on from day one, and it’s one I treasure because I don’t get to do it enough with him.
Catching his hand as he steps out, we pause, staring into each other’s eyes. My heart makes that clichéd little skip all the romance books and Hallmark movies are so fond of.
But it’s true.
He’s only the second person in my life to make that happen. It’s a miracle I can even feel it after what I endured.
I count it as another blessing.
His lips part as I lean in, but I only nuzzle my nose against his. “Don’t strip,” I whisper.
He smiles. “Yes, Master.”
Instead, I lift his hand to my lips and kiss it, then send him inside with a hard swat to his ass.
He knows what I want, and wastes no time hurrying on ahead.
When I follow, after hanging up my coat in the hall next to his, I find him exactly where and how I want him—upstairs and kneeling on the floor of our bedroom, fully dressed, forehead against the tops of his hands, which are flat on the floor in front of him.
Ass toward the bedroom door.
I can see him naked any night we’re in bed together. But there’s something about the sight of him in a suit that fills me with a lustful pride of ownership I cannot fully explain.
Unless you want to boil it down to something as simple as a suit fetish.
Maybe that’s it.
Or, maybe it’s the memory of two guys standing in an upscale men’s clothing shop, while the one watches with barely constrained lust in his eyes as the other gets fitted for his very first custom-tailored suits.
I shove those memories away. Today’s not the day to let the ghost have its way with me.
Unfastening and removing my cufflinks as I walk around Daniel, I suck in a sharp breath at how his suit jacket bunches up in that familiar way, how his shirt cuffs peek out past the sleeves.
How the cufflinks I gave him for Christmas and fastened on him this morning twinkle in the dim light.
Another subtle day collar for him to wear every day.
I remember the first suits I bought for him—
Ihaveto shove that memory away, too, for now, because it’s too close to the ghost tapping at my soul and demanding attention.
I’ve been good lately. At least a year since I’ve written an e-mail I won’t send, and at least two years since I Googled my ghost, or scanned social media to see if he got divorced.
Or had kids.
Despite my years of intense emotional and psychological work, there’s still a lot of old and painful baggage left to unpack. Maybe, one day, I’ll do that.
Today isnotthat day.
Today is the day I focus on my husband and love him, because we’ll return to DC in three days, and life will get crazy.
