The bruises on my hips have faded from purple to yellow-green, and Dominic has been careful with me in ways that make my chest hurt. He's not distant. He still touches me, still pulls me against him on the couch after dinner, still calls me firefly in the voice that makes my toes curl. But his hands land lighter than they used to, and he watches my face during sex with an attention that borders on clinical, checking for signs that I'm slipping under. He hasn't used his Alpha bark once since that night.
Part of me misses the edge. The rest of me is grateful for the breathing room, and the fact that both things are true makes me want to scream into a pillow.
Dinner tonight is a minefield I don't see coming. Richard is already at the head of the table when I arrive, a glass of whiskey in his hand that isn't his first. My mother sits to his left, performing the role of adoring wife with the precision of a surgeon, her laugh landing at exactly the right moments, her hand finding his arm when she wants to emphasize a point. Neither Dominic or Amos has shown up yet.
"Mattaniah." Richard gestures to the chair on his right. "Sit."
I sit. The housekeeper brings out the first course and Richard's hand lands on my knee under the table before I've unfolded my napkin.
"You've been settling in nicely." He says it to the table at large, his voice pleasant, his thumb pressing into the inside of my knee. "Finding your rhythm at the office. Making friends with the staff."
"I'm trying to be useful, sir."
"You're succeeding." His hand slides two inches up my thigh. "Tamsin tells me you've been very... diligent. Running errands all over the building. Visiting various floors."
My mother's eyes flick to me across the table. She's heard the subtext. Her expression sayshandle it.
"I've been learning the systems." My voice stays steady through sheer force of will. "It's a large company. There's a lot to understand."
"There is." Richard's hand slides another inch. His pinky finger brushes the inseam of my pants. "I'm glad you're taking such initiative. It shows... dedication."
Amos appears in the doorway. His gaze sweeps the table, something flickering across his face before the mask slides back into place.
"Sorry I'm late." He takes the seat beside my mother, directly across from me. "Got caught up in the quarterly reports."
"Always working." Richard's hand squeezes my thigh once before withdrawing. The absence of his touch is almost worse than the presence of it, because now I'm waiting for it to return. "You could learn something from Amos, Mattaniah. He understands the value of dedication."
The meal passes in a blur of small talk and surveillance. Richard's hand returns twice more, once brushing my knee when he reaches for the salt, once settling on my thigh during dessert and staying there for a full three minutes while he discusses golf with my mother. Amos' jaw tightens across the table each time it happens, and each time I sit perfectly still and pretend I'm somewhere else.
When Richard finally pushes back from the table, I nearly collapse with relief.
"I have a meeting." He drains the last of his whiskey and adjusts his cuffs. "Don't wait up."
He pauses behind my chair on his way out. His hand lands on my shoulder and slides across to the other one in that slow proprietary drag I've come to dread, his mouth lowering to my ear.
"We'll continue your development tomorrow. I have ideas about how to best utilize your... talents."
He's gone before I can respond. The front door closes and the car pulls away. My mother excuses herself without looking at me, her heels clicking up the stairs, and I'm left at the table with Amos and the ghost of Richard's hand on my thigh.
"I need a minute," I manage, and I'm out of my chair and up the stairs before Amos can respond.
I lock my fixed bedroom door and press my back against the wood while I try to remember how to breathe. Richard's cologne is still in my nose. His hand is still on my thigh even though he's been gone for five minutes, his thumb on the inside of my knee, his pinky brushing my inseam. My mother watched it happen from across the table and did nothing.
I strip off my shirt because he ran his hand over my shoulders when he leaned close to my ear, then kick off my pants because his hand was on them. Standing in my underwear in the middle of my room I still feel dirty, still feel like something that belongs to him because he decided it does.
The closet door is already open. I don't remember deciding to move but I'm on my knees in the corner before my brain catches up with my body. The pile is here, Dominic's jacket on the bottom, Amos' shirt folded on top, the scarf wound through both of them. I added a t-shirt yesterday that Amos left in the laundry. I added a pair of Dominic's socks the day before that, stolen from his gym bag when no one was looking.
I bury my face in the pile and breathe. Their combined scent hits my nervous system and cuts through the cologne still clinging to my sinuses. My shoulders drop. My jaw unclenches.The crawling sensation on my skin fades to a whisper as my lungs fill with something that isn't Richard.
I curl tighter around the pile, pulling Dominic's jacket over my shoulders, pressing Amos' shirt against my face. The fabric is soft from washing and it smells like him underneath the detergent.
But it's not enough. Their scent is here but they're not. The clothes hold the smell but not the warmth, not the weight of their arms or the pressure of their hands. My body knows the difference between borrowed comfort and the real thing.
"Just go find them," I mutter into the fabric. "Stop being pathetic and just go find them."
I pull on sweatpants and one of their t-shirts and slip out of my room. The hallway is empty. My mother's door is closed. Dominic's voice is a low murmur from somewhere on the second floor, still on his conference call.
That leaves Amos. I make it to the top of the stairs before he appears at the bottom, looking up at me with an expression that tells me he was already coming to find me.
