It was one of the reasons I loved taking off with him some mornings, usually on the weekends and on vacations. Nate went swimming with him instead. And we always came home with stories to share.
A couple of months later
Arlington
Nathan Riley
While Hallie and Micah oohed and aahed over the new additions to Ash’s tattoos, which I supposed would be considered a full sleeve at this point, I couldn’t shake the niggling worry growing in the back of my mind.
I placed the salmon in the oven before I glanced at Ash at the table.
Maybe I was overreacting or… Maybe I was out of my fucking mind? To even think it could be a bad thing that he wasso into family. Most people would dream about someone like that, right? And I did too—Ilovedthat he was such a great husbandand father. It was just… What about the rest of him? How could a person admit that a certain kink was part of his very core and then not explore it at all?
“That’s my birthday, right there!” Micah grinned and pointed to his date of birth on Ash’s forearm.
“That’s right—the day and year you were born.” Ash smiled and traced our boy’s finger to the next date. “And there’s Lily. Hallie…and…over here, we have Dylan.”
He had more than important dates inked on his arm. He had memories on full display. A couple of Legos, the river we’d hiked along in the Shenandoah, quotes from our wedding vows, lyrics from songs that meant something to us, baby bottles…
He was very subtle about his nods to kink. He claimed the forest background near his shoulder was for his love of primal takedowns, but it could very well be from one of our road trips with the kids. He had a bundle of rope with a wedding band for me. A set of throwing knives—to represent a kink he hadn’t engaged in since long before we’d left Boston.
He’d hosted demos about knife play. He’d taken part in takedown events—even if they’d been nonsexual for the most part. He’d chased brats around with their Owners.
As happy as I was that he’d found new friends in Mclean, not much had come of it. He came home talking about meeting up for lunch with Kingsley or Reid or Greer or KC or…whatever. He was the first to sign up for a barbecue with the Mclean friends if my folks were watching the kids. He went out and grabbed a beer with River and Reese. Recently, Ash went out running with Colt some evenings. He frequently found time to catch up with Penelope over coffee, because their offices were kinda close.
Nothing kinky whatsoever, though. Oh, wait. He’d joined a couple of primal events. As adungeon monitor.
That didn’t fucking count.
Ash could be the best father in the world, but he was also a natural Daddy Dom. I just knew he’d thrive in such a dynamic. It was simmering right under the surface. I felt it almost every time we had sex. He wanted to control, nurture, and possess.
He let that part of him seep out, possibly unconsciously, in other aspects too. Especially in the early stages of our relationship, when he’d struggled to let me do things that he might consider “his responsibility.”
He was a protector. Every now and then, he called me his boy. It was still, in his eyes, his job to drive the longest during our road trips so that I could get some rest. And before he’d started growing annoyed with my pushing him toward kink, he could jokingly say “Let Daddy fix that” if I struggled with something.
He definitely didn’t do it any longer. He knew I’d point it out and go all “shrink” on him. His words.
These seemingly insignificant aspects worked for me, because I loved having him possessive and protective of me. But if I ever allowed any Dom-isms out in his presence, he’d look at me strangely or laugh and find it funny. Luckily for him, I’d wanted to take his last name, but I could just imagine his reaction if I’d suggested we take mine.
I was going to say something.
The following Friday when Ash’s parents came up to visit, he and I got a night off to go to Mclean together, which was incredibly rare. Most of the time, I went once a week for a rope session in the dojo, when the kids thought I was playing badminton with a friend, whereas Ash headed out there for occasional barbecue nights and setups for events. That was whenhe was, according to the kids, working late. So being able to go together while our house was turned into a sleepover zone with Grandma and Grandpa was nice.
Unless I was about to ruin the nice part.
“So, you’re just gonna set up for that fear-play event that takes place tomorrow?” I wondered.
“Yeah, I guess so. We’ll throw some steaks on the grill too.” He checked his side-view and switched lanes. “When all is said and done, Reese and I will run the course with two brats who aren’t participating tomorrow.”
Oh. That was news to me. “Which brats?”
He hummed. “Ivy and that new guy—Timothy, I think.”
I did know who that was. Timothy and Cam ventured up to the dojo sometimes for our sessions. I wasn’t sure if Cam was accompanying Timothy to be nice to the new Little in town, or if they were friends, but neither of them had bondage at the top of the list of kinks, yet showed up more frequently than any of the other downstairs members.
For quite some time, I’d felt there was a rift between the various communities at Mclean. Or perhaps rift was a strong word—rather, divide? We had the founding members and their circle of friends with diverse kinks, which included Ash these days. They were Sadists, primal players, Daddy Doms, switches, Masters, Littles, and brats. We had the bondage community, where we rarely ventured outside Room 8, our rope dojo on the second floor. We had the tight-knit leather community that booked one of the orgy rooms on the third floor for their get-togethers. Every now and then, they shared the puppy-play course down by the forest line with our approximately five or six active members of the puppy-play community. Other smaller groups included our foot fetishists, watersports players, and degradation sluts.
I didn’t know if that divide was simply natural and preferred among the members, though. The founders invited everyone when they arranged events, so it wasn’t as if anyone was ever excluded. But sure, sometimes it felt like we closed ourselves in too much.
