Page 69 of Bared

Fortunately, she didn’t discern his private asshole rant. The woman was actually laughing now. Not the robust burst from before but stunning him just as fully.

“If you qualify prayer as a proclivity, then yes,” she offered.

“Prayer.” Brick echoed the word as if he’d never heard it before. There were words with which he was friendlier, like hippopotamus and turducken. Practicing the word was an even more bizarre idea. But this moment changed all that. A lot. “So…while you and I were out there, doing what we did…”

A new giggle from her, dancing all over his unwitting pause. “You mean making the earth move and the stars sing?”

“Not exactly how I’d phrase it, but yes.” He wanted to grin but doused the expression while straddling the lounger and reaching for her other hand. “Are you saying that in your mind, it felt like…what? Going to church? Confessing your sins? Paying penitence?” Well, shit. He was out of his depth but just realizing it. He knew nothing about Arcadian religion, beyond the Creator that she, Jagger, and Requiemme invoked.

“Hmm.” Such a brief but telling sound. It gave away her earnest consideration. “It was not like any of those things, really.” She winced, seeming to silently apologize for shooting down his suggestion. “It was not like what I do on the outside for the Creator, if that makes sense? It was closer to what I feel on the inside…when I recognize feelings that are bigger than me.”

Brick studied her closely. “So, your church feelings.”

“Not just church. The Creator is larger than a building—the same way we are creatures with substance beyond our bones and muscles and skin. There is more there, yes? Our souls. Our spirits. The parts of us that are better shared with those we care about.” She stretched her fingers out, wrapping them around his forearms. “And those we trust.”

One long moment. Then another. Stretches of time he didn’t know what to do with. But like an astronaut surfing through space, he didn’t want to tug on the safety tether. Not yet.

“Brickham?” Her query was pitched high, as if more than a few minutes had gone by. “What is it?”

Her turquoises bore into him like lasers. But that wasn’t what made him opt for raw honesty with his reply.

“You trust me.”

The lasers softened as if they’d been pointed at a stuffed animal factory. “I do,” she whispered, bringing her knees up beneath her.

“You trust me as much as you trust your Creator.”

“Yes.” She nodded, adding unexpected emphasis to an equally startling answer. But now that she’d given it, Brick wasn’t sure what to do with it—especially when she appended, “Yes, Sir. I certainly do.”

Thank fuck he’d chosen not to tug on that space tether yet. Being weightless and groundless was really fitting for how he felt now—except for when he hit reality reentry because of the confused crunch across her features.

“Pixie?”

“Hmm? Yes, Sir?”

“You’re not locked down on that one, okay? You can take it back anytime. Hell, you can take it back now.”

Jayd shook her head. “That is not why—” She shook her head as if ripping herself out of a trance. “I am perplexed for an entirely different reason.”

He leaned over, releasing her hands so he could cup her butt and coax her a little closer. No way could he resist, with her being so close and looking so cute. Holy shit. Her confused face was as captivating as her orgasm face. How was that even possible?

“What is it, sweetheart?” Because at this moment, he’d unravel the meaning of the whole damn universe for her. He hoped his tender peck to her nose conveyed that clearly enough.

“If trust is the key to making the TPE work, why do I think about other people I trust… I mean, I suppose, other men I have dated…and not imagine doing any of that with them? Nothing that you and I did, anyway. And certainly nothing like what we saw back in the dungeon.”

Brick lifted his lips to softly brush them across her forehead, enjoying the spikes of her bangs against his lips. “Relationships are as complex and layered inside the kink world as outside it,” he conveyed. “There are clear rules and boundaries about the dynamics, but beneath it all, there are still human beings involved. Personalities in motion.” While carefully choosing his next words, he settled his weight back again. “There’s a damn good chance you were just meeting men who didn’t enjoy the kinky corner of the playground.”

“You mean the kinky corner of the island?” She ended it with a ponderous sigh. “Which, I assure you, does not exist on Arcadia.”

“Do you know that as fact?” Before the rebuttal was done, he cursed himself. “Have you tried asking? Or had Emme or Jagger ask for you?” And then a new curse, more brutal than before. What the hell? He’d never been into masochism but having her back on the find-a-Dom pro tips had to be angling his punch card for karma’s cut.

But what did it say about his sadistic side to give the woman such a generous taste of her submissiveness and then cut her loose to figure out the rest from here? Nope. That was also in the masochism column. Just thinking about her surrendering to someone else, the way she’d just given herself to him, stabbed his blood with icicled rage and his mind with primitive wrath.

Fuck.

Wasn’t all this supposed to be a hot but quick dalliance? An easy distraction for them both? Certainly not a hookup that would infect him with an ugly strain of alpha-hole resentment. And that clarified things to the texture of cheese soup. Her next words didn’t help the mire.

“Arcadia is not like Seattle, Brickham,” she stated, verbally underlining every word.