Chapter Ten
Then — After
Daniel balks as we approach the shop’s front door. “Liam, this is too much, really.”
I already have hold of his hand. I use it to pull him in for a kiss that disengages his brain. “You safewording for this?”
Yes, that’s playing dirty, because he knows I know full well what I’m doing.
He hates to safeword outside of our play.
As in, he doesn’t, and won’t, except under extraordinary circumstances. Because I know his stated limits and I abide by them.
Doesn’t mean I won’t spoil my boy rotten within the relationship guardrails we’ve set in place.
Like today.
“No, Master,” he finally admits when I end our kiss. He glances at the storefront. “If I knew I needed to add this to my list of hard limits at the start, I would have,” he mutters.
The grin feels good on my face. I’ve smiled and laughed more in the past nine months while we’ve been dating than I have in years. So I lead him inside and straight to the counter, where a smiling clerk greets us.
“Davis and Walker, two o’clock appointment,” I say.
The man nods. “Yes, sir. You are expected. Please, follow me.” He leads us back to one of the swanky private fitting suites and makes us comfortable after taking our beverage order. We could get anything we want, from water to hard liquor, because I’m one of their prime customers. Instead, we settle on hot tea.
Daniel looks around and I see how he’s trying to disguise his wide-eyed shock at the preferential treatment my money has afforded us. He doesn’t realize exactly how rich I am, and I haven’t bothered to correct his misconception that I’m not much more than “well off.”
“This isn’t anything like the mall,” he snarks.
“No, it’s not. They’ve been in business for over sixty years. I buy all my suits here.” The Boston tailor was highly recommended by other attorneys in my firm because they do amazing work.
When the past tries to knock on my mental bulwarks, I shove away the memory of another tailor’s shop in another major city and another blue-eyed boy.
Except that timeIwas the one wide-eyed with wonder.
It feels good to be on this side of the exchange.
Daniel settles back in his deep, cozy leather chair and plays with the heavy stainless bracelet on his right wrist. I gave that to him three months after our first date, and he balks every time I talk about upgrading it to gold, or at the very least silver.
He likes it because it was the first day collar I gave him.
I’m certain part of his hesitation is he’d feel weird wearing something more expensive. He doesn’t think he’s worth it, even if he’ll never admit that.
I know the feeling well, recognize the look in his eyes, the borderline panic, when I break out my black Amex to pay for things I feel he deserves.
Part of me wants to propose to him immediately while my common sense keeps the words locked in my brain.
The wounded soul still trying to stitch itself back together deep in my mental basement begs me to wait.
Daniel patiently loves me, even if we haven’t said those words to each other yet. When I can’t talk about what happened, he holds me and assures me he’s not going anywhere, because he has his own ghosts he struggles with on a regular basis.
He goes out of his way to text me if he has to put his phone on silent and won’t be able to respond for a while. To the point he even put a tracking app on his phone and sent me the login info for it.
No, I didn’t ask him to do that.
I never asked him to do that.
I try not to look at it but, sometimes, when I know he has meetings or has to travel, I open it and check. It shows me everywhere he’s been.
