“He thinks me passing out is a sign of the same?”
“Can you blame him?” she replied. “Is it?”
“No,” I said. “I’m sorry that your experience was bad, but that wasn’t my experience at all. I mean, yeah, I felt totally out of control, but Gio was totally in control, so it was okay.”
A pensive look grew into a smile. “Ah. He wasn’t wrong. You are unique.”
“He said that?”
“I gathered.” Then she pointed at me. “You’re gonna be the lucky one, you know?”
“Lucky one?”
“Have you two ever had sex thatwasn’tBDSM?”
I thought about the greenhouse, or back in his car after escaping my brothers. “Yeah.”
She nodded as if that was what she was expecting. “Yeah, Gio doesn’t do that. Not at all. He’s kicked women out of his house in the middle of the night for even suggesting they just do it regularly for the night. Lemme guess, after it happens things get really intense and emotional?”
“Yeah,” I said, sitting up a little straighter in bed. “Was it the same for you?”
“Honey, no. Gio and I never hadjust sex. I’m telling you, the only women he’s ever hadjust sexwith are the very first woman who took his virginity, and you.”
My eyes widened. “Really?”
“Really. I realize that how you got here with Gio isn’t anyone’s fairy tale beginning, but I’ve never seen him like this before. He gets all weird and emotional because Giovanni doesn’tdoemotions. He’s a textbook, unemotional kind of guy. I’ve seen him stare blankly at sobbing women, but when I walked into his office before coming up here, he looked like he was on the edge of disaster, going on and on about you not wanting to do the kink stuff anymore and not wanting to stay here. I’ve never seen him like that.”
“But Gio and I are not… We don’t do anything other than sex. He won’t even stay in a room with me if he knows it can’t end in sex,” I said. “He doesn’t want more from me than that.”
“Yeah,” she rolled her eyes. “I don’t think that’s true, but my advice stops short of knowing how to crack him open. His childhood, then being raised by a lunatic like Merrick, has an effect on one’s psyche.”
“So it’s not… me? It’s him?”
“Sweetie, I’m gonna tell you something his parents who obsess over him or Milli who babies him won’t tell you… It’s never you. Giovanni, poor baby, he’s got issues. Nothing a nice, well rounded woman can’t solve, but don’teverget to thinking that any problems between the two of you are you. That man has the business savvy of a fifty-year-old master of the craft, and the romantic, emotional age of like a fifteen-year-old. That’s why he avoids it, because he doesn’t know what he’s doing.”
Even if knowing that wasn’t going to make me feel less neglected, it did make me feel better over all. “That’swaymore of a relief than I’m willing to admit.”
She giggled. “Good luck though. If the terrible task of getting Giovanni to be less of a dom and more of a boyfriend has fallen to you, you certainly have your work cut out for you.”
“Yeah.” I laid back in bed, my mind and heart both reeling from what the best way forward might be. “I’m not entirely confident in my ability to do it.”
Kelly laughed. “I’m not entirely confident inanyone’sability to do it.”
Confidence aside, I’d just have to figure it out. That was the path forward, and if I failed, I was going to lose Gio forever.
46
GIO
I was pacing back and forth across my office so badly that I was sure I was going to start leaving grooves in the floor. Milli was sitting in a chair on the other side of my desk, watching me with unbridled irritation, because though he came in to do work, I couldn’t focus my mind on anything else.
When Kelly agreed to go and talk to Avion, I was relieved because I thought it was going to give me some insight, but the thought that having my former sub and my current one discussing the intimate details of that made me more than a little uncomfortable. If Icouldjust focus on what Milli wanted to talk about, I’d be in a much better position, but the more time that passed without Kelly coming to report on what she’d learned, the more I panicked. It shouldn’t be taking so long. All I wanted her to do was gauge Avion’s level of comfort. She was supposed to get in, ask a few broad questions, and get out.
But two hours had passed and I had a feeling that wasn’t what she was doing.
“You’re agitating me,” Milli said in a muted tone.
“I know.” I tried throwing myself down into my office chair to calm down, but my leg was bouncing so hard it was shaking things on my desk. “I’m just a little nervous.”
