4
TESTS
I thought sleep would come instantly to me. I’d started the day at home in Michigan, living life as usual. Within a matter of hours, my life had been totally changed. Now I was in Manhattan, locked away in a tower like fucking Rapunzel. Only, I could leave whenever I wanted. The only thing holding me here was my own stubbornness, my curiosity, my need to make sure the only family I had left was taken care of. I smiled to myself. I might be blonde, but my hair wasn’t that long. So I wasn’t like Rapunzel at all, except for being in a tower. And there were many towers in those old fairy tales.
Was this a fairy tale? If it was, I sure as shit wasn’t any princess. My…captor? My provider? What was he? A prince? He could be. Maybe he was some kind of European royalty; they did still have royalty in some European countries. He definitely seemed to have the mannerisms of an aristocrat. Proper speech, a touch of formality in even the most private and intimate situations, elegant manners. He even cursed with elegance. Clearly very well educated, obviously wealthy. I had a sense that he came from money, from privilege. He was not some dot-com startup billionaire, some rich real-estate yuppie. He was born into wealth, but something made me think he’d made his own fortune as well. The clues were there, after all, especially in the story of how he’d hired Eliza. I didn’t think he meant to reveal that much of himself to me this early, but the story told me a lot about him.
I struggled to go to sleep, and failed. There were no clocks in my rooms, so I could not tell the time. I had my phone somewhere in my purse, but the battery was dead, and honestly, I found myself not caring what time it was. Late, I knew that much. Harris had shown up at four in the afternoon. I’d just gotten home from a lunch shift at Outback, and had showered off the restaurant stench. A good four, almost five hours, had passed from the time Harris and I left my apartment to arriving here in this high-rise palace. Another hour from first meeting to dinner…it had to be past midnight, easily. Dinner had been long, slow, drawn-out affair. We’d lingered over each bite. There had been long silences between us, stretched-out moments devoid of empty conversation. Those silences, they should have been awkward, but they weren’t.
I wasn’t given to small talk, to idle chatter. I’d been on dozens of first dates in my life that had never gone anywhere, simply because I wasn’t interested in inane babble. I had no patience for men who rambled on and on. Shut up about the stupid football game. I couldn’t care less about fucking football. The Lions suck, they’ve always sucked and they will always suck. Shut up about stocks. I don’t care which stock rose ten points and which went down five. What does that even mean, and in what universe am I supposed to care? If the conversation doesn’t interest me, I’m out. Like, done, right now, do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars, do not finish the date. I’ve stood up in the middle of a meal and said, “Thanks for the effort, but this isn’t working out.” I’d rather eat alone and in silence than make idle small talk. And my mystery man, mister tall and blond, he seemed to be the same way. He didn’t speak unless he had something worthwhile to say, and I appreciated that about him.
No wonder I couldn’t sleep. My brain went in endless circles, flitting from thought to thought like a butterfly in a field of wildflowers.
I thought of that glimpse of him I’d gotten. He had to be at least six-four, maybe taller. Every time I’d been around him, he’d moved almost silently, his footsteps light and quick. As I’d watched him round the corner, he’d moved easily, despite his height. He’d looked lean and muscular, but not burly. I mean, this was just conjecture based on a single split-second glance, but that was my impression.
And that too worked for me. I wasn’t impressed by guys who had muscles on muscles, twenty-inch biceps and pectoral muscles bigger than my own tits—which weren’t small, by the way. If a guy was that beefed up, he’d obviously spent hours and hours in the gym. Staying in that kind of shape took dedication. Good for them, sure, great, go for it. But I wanted the guy I dated to have time for me. If he set aside three or four hours every day just to go to the gym, then that was three to four hours he didn’t have for me. Call me selfish, but I expected my boyfriends to be more dedicated to me than to their weight bench. Plus, why do you need to be that big? Do you go around lifting heavy things all day? Do you routinely need to lift a four-hundred-pound…thing? Um, probably not. What even weighs four hundred pounds that you’d come across in everyday life? I couldn’t think of a single thing.
No, give me a guy who’s in decent shape, who can hold an interesting conversation any day of the week. Give me a guy who can show me a good time without having to flex his muscles six times a minute, just to make sure they’re still there. I would want to say, Yes, buddy, you’ve still got your muscles. They didn’t go away in the last five minutes. And, no, I’m still not impressed by how much you can bench. Can you carry me to bed? Can you last long enough to make me come? Those are the important things. Get me to bed, get me off. If you can manage those things, I’ll be impressed.
This was why, at twenty-six, I was still single. Most guys didn’t pass the first-date test, much less the long-term test of holding my interest for more than a month. SportsmoviesIworkOUTlookatmymusclesI’msobuff. Shut up, I DO NOT CARE. Use the muscle in your skull, and then the one in your pants. Impress me with your vocabulary, and then your sexual attentiveness. See, that was the other thing. I didn’t really need a guy to be able to go for hours and hours. That got boring real fucking fast. Heh, that’s punny. No, for real, though. I’d rather come fast and come hard than be fucked for hours on end. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I loved sex. It was great. But hours of it? Probably not. Figure out what makes me moan, and do that until I come. I guarantee, if you did that, you’d come, too. That was just how it worked. Me, and probably most other women, I’d wager. Except, most guys didn’t seem to get that. They seemed to think harder, faster, and longer meant better when, in reality, that was very often not the case.
Mystery man?
Holy shit. He could turn me on with mere words. A whisper in my ear. A touch to my cheek. A kiss to my jaw. He had me squirming and wet and aching at dinner, and he only kissed me, fairly chaste kisses at that. No tongue, no heavy petting. My clothes stayed on, and in place. Shit, he turned me on more with a few kisses to my hand and arm than any other guy had managed in an entire night of full-on sex. It wasn’t hard to make me hot and horny, nor was it hard to make me come. I was…average, I’d think. I didn’t have a hair trigger, and I rarely came more than once. But if you paid attention to my signals, you could get me off pretty easily.
What happened at dinner?
Unreal. Just…totally unreal.
I got out of bed, dressed in a T-shirt and underwear, and paced the living room, my thoughts racing. I ached. Deep down, between my legs. He’d made me hot, and he’d left me hanging. I didn’t like that. I wasn’t in some kind of sexual frenzy, just…mildly frustrated. Left curious, wondering, needing more.
Finally I couldn’t take it anymore. I left my room and wandered toward the kitchens. I didn’t bother dressing, since only Eliza would be around to see me, assuming she was still awake. Mystery Man—God, I really needed to find out his name—had said he’d be in his private quarters.
Really? Private quarters? Who says that anymore? The dirty-minded teenager in me wanted to make a joke about it. When faced with situations that I had a hard time dealing with, my go-to reaction was humor, usually bawdy and inappropriate.
After a few wrong turns, I found the industrial kitchen, gaping and echoing and dark. An eight-burner Wolf gas range with an expansive, gleaming hood vent, double Wolf ovens, an unlit stone pizza oven with a long-handled paddle leaning against the wall, a wide island with a white cutting board running in front of a bank of closed, silver-topped, refrigerated containers. This was a restaurant kitchen, done in luxury-grade. There was a walk-in refrigerator, a walk-in freezer, and a six-foot-tall wine cooler stocked with bottle after bottle of what I assumed was thousands of dollars in chilled wine. There was another freestanding refrigerator dedicated to nothing but beer: Stella Artois, Newcastle, Smithwicks, Guinness, Harp, Yuengling, Duvel, Chimay…every kind of beer you could imagine except cheap domestic. No Bud Light or Coors here. I probably shouldn’t tell him I rarely drank anything but Bud Light. That was due more to budgetary restrictions than taste preference, but still.
I chose a Harp, rummaged through half a dozen drawers until I found a bottle opener. I wandered, beer in hand, until I found the breakfast nook. I stood with my nose near the glass, staring out at the still-bustling city.
I smelled him before I heard him. Honestly, I don’t think I ever really did hear him approach. I smelled his cologne, felt him behind me.
“Don’t turn around,” he murmured.
“I won’t.” The room behind us was dark, so there was no reflection of him in the window. An admission burbled up and out; I had to know what he would do. This was my test for him. “I peeked, earlier. You were going around the corner. You’re really tall, and you have blond hair.”
There was a long, significant hesitation before he responded. “Why did you tell me? I wouldn’t have ever known.”
I shrugged, swallowed a mouthful of beer. “I don’t know.” A lie, but I couldn’t very well tell him my real reason for spilling the truth.
“Hmmm.” I heard liquid glug in a bottle neck, and deduced he was drinking beer as well. “You shouldn’t have peeked, Kyrie.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” Strangely, it was a genuine apology.
Why did it matter? I couldn’t answer that question, except to say that it did. There was no point in denying his effect on me, no point in denying that I wanted his approval, his trust. What was it about him that created this reaction in me?
He was standing far enough behind me that we weren’t touching, but close enough that I felt heat coming from him. I should have felt self-conscious about my attire—or lack thereof—but I wasn’t. Not with him. And again, why wasn’t I? I wasn’t a prude, nor was I shy. I could rock a bikini without feeling self-conscious, but I wasn’t a show-off, either. I didn’t flash more skin than I felt comfortable with. The T-shirt I was wearing just barely cleared the bottom of my ass, leaving almost my entire lower half on display for him. And this didn’t bother me in the slightest. I felt…at ease despite being half-naked around a man I’d known for less time than it had taken me to fly here from Detroit.
“I told you not to fail that test.”
“Yes, you did.”
“And yet you still peeked.”
“I’m a curious girl, what can I say?”
“You’re a bad girl.” His voice was low, dark, thick with promise.
“Yeah?” I heard the teasing rasp in my voice, and wondered who it was. Not me, surely. “What are you gonna do about it?” I swallowed hard, waiting for his response.
I felt his fingers pinch the cotton of my shirt, lifting it. He let it rest on the swell of my ass. The underwear I wore was somewhere between lingerie and basic briefs. It was the kind of lacy panty that was molded to my ass, cutting in tight between my ass cheeks. Light pink in color, comfy, sexy. Now I felt revealed, exposed. I wasn’t breathing; I didn’t dare. I’d been bad. Disobedient.
Even thinking in those terms made me squirm with discomfort. I wasn’t a child who worried about disobeying. But yet the feeling persisted, fear mixed with excitement.
Something warm and rough cupped my ass. I swayed, nearly dropping my beer. I tried to breathe. I was getting dizzy from having held my breath for so long. His hand caressed first one side, and then the other. He sucked in a short, sharp breath.
“Bloody hell, Kyrie. So damned perfect.” His words weren’t really meant for me, it seemed, stumbling out of his mouth in a barely audible mumble.
I was about to demur, to remind him I wasn’t perfect, when he spoke again. Louder, to me, this time.
“No more peeking, yes?”
Once again, I opened my mouth to speak when I was cut off. This time, by a quick yet stinging smack to my right ass cheek. It wasn’t hard; it didn’t hurt. It just…surprised me. I gasped at the unexpected contact, and then the gasp morphed into something else when his palm smoothed and gentled my stinging flesh.
“No more peeking, yes?” His tone was prompting, demanding an answer. I was too surprised and mixed-up to form words. I nodded, hoping that would do. Apparently not. The light, sharp slap came to the left side of my butt this time, once again followed immediately by a soothing circle of his warm hand. “No…more…peeking. Yes?”
“Yes…yes.” The answer flew from my lips, breathless, and then I sucked in a long breath, finally able to breathe.
“That wasn’t so bad, now, was it?” His hand rested on the bell of my hip, casual, possessive.
Familiar. As if it belonged there.
“I thought…I thought you said you weren’t into that?”
“Did I hurt you?”
“No,” I admitted.
“It was a reminder. I expect answers when I ask questions. I would never, ever cause you pain. A bit of a sting, that’s all.” His breath stole over my neck, and his voice rumbled in my ear. God, I wanted so badly to turn around. “And you liked it, didn’t you?”
I knew I had to answer. “Yes.” My answer was barely a breath — it didn’t count as speech. It was a susurrus of mortification.
“If you truly don’t like something, if it causes you prolonged discomfort or pain, tell me. I should, under all circumstances, be able to read your responses to what I do, but if for some reason I miss something, just tell me. But please—for both our sakes—examine yourself before you ask me to stop. Find out if you really truly want me to stop. Or if you’re merely afraid of liking something new.”
I took a long pull off my beer and then, in an instinctual gesture that surprised me as much as him, I think, I leaned my head back until it met his chest. I kept my eyes closed, per our agreement.
“This is all so…much,” I heard myself admit. “So different. So strange. So scary. I don’t know what’s happening to me. You—you do something to me. Just by—I don’t even know—without trying. Like you know all my switches and buttons. But you couldn’t. You couldn’t possibly know what makes me tick this well. No amount of stalking, watching me from a distance, could tell you what turns me on.”
“Yes, you’re right.” His voice, coming from so close, from his chest, from above my head…was loud, pure energy and vibration. “I told you, Kyrie. I can read you like a book. You’re scared, but you want this. You hate the fact that I affect you so much, but you like it in equal measure. The fear makes it that much more exciting.”
Glass touched wood, and then he took my bottle and set it down as well on the table behind us. His hands slid down my arms. His body towered behind me. His breath blew on my neck.
“Eyes closed, Kyrie.”
“They are,” I told him.
“Good.” A brief pause. “Do you trust me?”
“I’m trying. I’m getting there.”
“For all that I’m in control here, this still moves at your speed. I will push your boundaries, push you beyond what you think you’re comfortable with, but not so fast that your fears take over.” Fingers, tangling in mine, big and hard and hot, twining with my own, small and trembling and cool. “Tell me what you want. Right now. One thing that you want to feel.”
There was no hesitation. “Another kiss.”
“Good girl.”
I hated that phrase, the way it was said, praising my response. “I’m not a fucking dog, so don’t ‘good girl’ me.”
He chuckled. “Touchy, touchy.”
“I’m not touchy. I just resent being spoken to as if I’m a poodle that finally managed to sit on command.”
I’d have thought, with this little exchange, that the mood for kissing would be gone. But no. Oh, no. My eyes still closed, I still felt his breath curl over my cheek, sandpaper skin sliding softly against my jaw, warm lips brushing mine. And, just that fast, my complaint was forgotten. I twisted in place, my feet remaining planted, my torso turning and leaning back. It was an offering, yet another way for me to show him that I was giving in to this.
You know how I said I didn’t sleep around on the first date? Well, I rarely even kissed on the first date, either. I wasn’t a prude; I’d said this before. I just didn’t believe in diving headfirst into a physical relationship if there wasn’t some kind of emotional or personal connection in place. I didn’t expect forever love from a guy I was dating. I didn’t expect sweep-me-off-my-feet romance—although it was always nice—but I did expect him to put some kind of effort into getting to know me before he tried to get in my pants.
So why the hell was I letting this man kiss me? Why was I asking him to kiss me? He’d admitted to having watched me for a long time. He knew things about me no one should know. That was still in the back of my head, that question, why did he watch over me? Could it really be called “stalking” if he never made contact? To me, a stalker was someone who watched your every move, sent you creepy letters and made heavy-breathing phone calls, who stood outside your bedroom window and watched you change, whacking off all the while. A stalker was someone with an obsession, an unhealthy, unsafe infatuation. Naïve it might be, but I didn’t believe that of my Mystery Man.
Definitely naïve. I mean, look at where I was. I’d been collected. Collected. That still irked me.
“You can’t ever shut off your brain, can you?” I felt his words on my lips, shaking me from my thoughts.
“No, not really,” I said.
“What were you thinking about?” he asked. “It must have been rather fascinating, if it was able to distract you from kissing me.”
“Sorry. I just…this whole situation is weirding me right the fuck out. I don’t kiss on the first date. I don’t obey. I can’t forget that you watched me, that you know every little thing about me.” I moved out of his embrace, held out my hand, and wiggled my fingers until he put my beer into my hand. “You can read me. You’ve said it, and it’s true. That freaks me out, too. I’m just…I’m freaked out. I may not feel afraid, or in danger, but I can’t stop trying to figure this situation out. And yeah, I can’t really get into a make-out session when my brain is running a million miles a minute, trying to figure out what the fuck I’ve gotten myself into.” I took a sip and sighed after swallowing. “And…why me?”
I felt his presence recede a little, heard him take a swallow of his beer. I faced away and stared out the window. It was a constant effort to not turn around, yet for some reason, it was an effort I continued to make.
“All that is understandable.” He paused to drink. “Why you? Let’s just say for now that…I’ve got my reasons. I chose you because I want you. I know that doesn’t really help much, but it’s all I’m willing to say at the moment. So besides that, what could I do to alleviate some of your fears?”
I tapped my fingernail against the bottle. “I don’t know. A name? A nickname? Something for me to call you? It doesn’t have to be your real name, just…something.”
“Hmmm. That is a reasonable request, I suppose.” A deep breath. “You may call me…Roth.”
“Roth?”
“Yes. Roth. It is…one of my names.”
“You have more than one?”
He laughed. “Of course. Don’t you? Kyrie Abigail St. Claire. One could, conceivably, call you Abby, or Claire. In the same way, part of my name is Roth. It is a truth I’m giving you, and for a man as…reclusively private as I am, that is no small gift.”
When put that way…. “Thank you,” I said.
“You are welcome.” He was there behind me, close and hot and huge, once again. “Eyes closed.”
I did as I was bid. I closed my eyes, forced my breathing to stay even when my instinct was to hold it, bated and anxious, until I knew what he was going to do. Breathe in, breathe out. I was a ball of tension, shoulders bunched, fists clenched, one hand around my beer bottle, the other digging my nails into my palm.
In an effort to prove something—whether to myself or to him I wasn’t sure, nor even what I was trying to prove— I tilted my head back and finished my beer in four long pulls. Of course, I then had to cover my mouth and let out a long, quiet belch.
“Philistine,” he said, an amused lilt to his voice.
I laughed. “Hey, I muffled it.”
“True enough. Now, are you finished?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” He took my bottle and set it down. His hands cupped my elbows, slid up to my shoulders. I shivered, and felt my tension ratchet up. “You’re tense again. Relax, Kyrie. I won’t hurt you. Surely you know at least this much by now.”
I tried to force myself to relax but that, of course, was a contradiction in terms. You couldn’t force yourself to relax.
His thumbs circled into the muscles of my back, his fingers kneading my shoulders. That helped. And then I felt him sweep my hair off my neck, over one shoulder. My tongue flicked out and ran across my lips, anticipating his touch, his kiss. What I got was a cool breath blowing until I shivered, and then his lips met my pebbled flesh and the heat of his mouth washed over me. Every part of me loosened and contracted all at once, my tension receding even as eagerness had me expanding and straining.
Another kiss, to the slope of my neck. His finger tugged aside the neck of my shirt, and his lips touched my shoulder. He moved closer, near my throat now. One hand held the thick sheaf of my hair aside, and the other carved down my arm, knuckles brushing the outside of my braless breast. The shivers were constant now, every touch causing my skin to tighten and my muscles to tremble. I tilted my head aside, and his lips stuttered over my neck to kiss my throat. I felt his hair brushing my chin, his bulk leaning over my shoulder. I reached up with one hand, drawing in a deep breath, nerves jangling as I dared to touch him back. My fingers slid along the back of his neck, across his hairline, and into his hair. I heard him growl deep in his chest, disapproval or pleasure, I couldn’t tell, but he didn’t stop me. I let my fingers curl into the soft thatch of closely trimmed hair, wondering at myself, at this situation, at this man, finding no answers and not even really caring. He kissed behind my ear, and his hands drifted down my front, skimming the cotton of my shirt in a not-quite touch.
He grasped the lower hem, fists bunched at each of my thighs. I was frozen, not breathing…I was pretty sure even my blood had stopped pumping for a moment.
“Such thin cotton…” he murmured, his voice rough with suggestion. “I could rip it apart so easily. Have you bared to me, just that easily. I could kiss you…everywhere.”
I put my hand on his, between his fists, keeping my shirt down. “Roth…don’t….”
“No?” I felt his hands stretch apart, felt the cotton starting to give. “You’re still scared, Kyrie? Don’t you want to feel my lips on your skin? I know you do. You want it. You’re afraid to want it. You’re afraid to give in to me. But you want to, just as much. Have you ever really given yourself to a man before? I don’t think you have. And certainly never to a man like me.”
“A man….” I swallowed hard, fighting for words. He had my brain spiraling, my body shuddering, my blood thundering, my common sense eroding, and my senses humming. “A man like you?”
“Yes, Kyrie. A man like me.” Another tug of his fists, and I heard a distinct rip. “A man who knows exactly what he wants, and exactly how to get it.”
“And…and what do you want?” I was trying so hard to stay calm, and failing miserably.
Rrrrrrip. I felt cool air on my navel.
“To make you come” —rrrripppp— “harder than you ever have in your life.”
“Shit….”
“To hear you scream. To feel you tremble under my hands.” Rrrrrrrrrrrriiiip. The shirt was torn open to the space between my boobs. One more tug, and it would come free. “I’m going to make you come so hard you’ll cry.”
“Roth….” I wasn’t sure why I said his name. As a plea? Have mercy? Please, yes, I want that? No clue. Only that his name was all that came out.
“Yes, Kyrie. You’ll be saying that, very loudly. You can scream as loud as you want, sweet thing. No one can hear you.” His words should have terrified me, but they only made my thighs shake and my heart thud with anticipation. “Are you ready?”
“No….”
“Well, at least you’re honest about it.” Rrrrriiippp. All that held the shirt on my body were the sleeves, and his presence behind me. “You can tell me to stop any time, Kyrie. I will. Immediately.”
Stop. The word wouldn’t come out. I’d stopped breathing again, and had to suck in a lungful of oxygen before I passed out. My hands were trembling at my sides, my eyes squeezed shut. I was still covered, though, the torn shirt resting on the very outer edges of my areolae.
“A twitch of my hands, Kyrie. That’s all it will take. You’ll be bare to me.” He ran his fingertip along my clavicle, toying with the ripped collar of the shirt. “Or…one word from your mouth. But you have to choose. Right now. Tell me to stop, right now. And do you know what will happen if you don’t?”
“Wh—what?”
“I’ll use the shirt as a blindfold, and I’ll lay you down right here, on the floor. I’ll make you come again and again. Until you can’t breathe and can’t move. Until you’re crazy with ecstasy.”
Fuck. I wanted that. Jesus, I did want that. “And—and you?”
“What about me?” He sounded baffled.
“What will you want…from me? In return?”
“What will I want from you? Just your moans, Kyrie. Just the flush on your perfect skin. Nothing but that.” That was too good to be true. That was a lesson I learned early on in life: If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. He traced the hollow at the base of my throat with a finger. “Or, tell me to stop. I’ll leave you alone, and you can go to bed. We’ll resume this another night, but for tonight, you’d be…safe.”
Safe. Did I want that safety? Yes, and no. I didn’t doubt his ability to do exactly what he was promising, and I didn’t even want to think about how long it had been since I’d had an orgasm. But I also needed to know if he’d really stop when I asked him to. The trouble was, testing him would leave me aching and frustrated.
It had to be done, though. I’d never be able to totally trust him unless I knew he was as good as his word.
His hands were poised to brush my shirt away and, if that happened, I’d be lost to his touch.
“Stop.” I was proud of myself for getting that word out, for making it sound strong, sure, all the things I wasn’t feeling in that moment.
His hands froze the very moment the word left my mouth. “As you wish.” I felt him step away, and my entire body ached, screamed at me to beg him to come back, touch me, finish it, do as he’d promised he would.
“It’s too much…too soon,” I explained.
“Kyrie…darling, you don’t need to explain yourself. I understand completely.”
“You’re not…mad?” Why the fuck did I care? Why did that come out sounding so ingratiating, so weak, so small? Ugh.
“No, of course not. Perhaps a bit…disappointed. Not in you, per se, but…simply left wanting. I don’t think you grasp the depth of my attraction to and desire for you. But you will.” I smelled him, felt him close, his voice suddenly buzzing in my ear. “You will. You want this. You’re testing me, Kyrie. Don’t think I’ve missed that. So this is me earning your trust. Have I passed your test?”
I squared my shoulders, breathed deeply. Nodded. “Yes, Roth. You have. Thank you.”
“Count to sixty, and then you may go.”
“Okay.”
“Goodnight, Kyrie…again.”
“Goodnight, Roth.”
I heard his footsteps recede, and I counted to sixty. I lost count, thinking about how he’d called me “darling.” Eventually I assumed more than a minute had passed, so I went back to my room, clutching the edges of my shirt together. I sat on my bed, the shredded remains of my second-favorite sleep T-shirt on my lap. How easily he’d ripped it. I gripped the edges of the back of the shirt and pulled. I barely got the cloth to stretch. I had to exert all my strength to get the hem to tear; he’d done it as easily as ripping a sheet of paper. Yet for all his obvious strength, his touch had never been anything less than exquisitely gentle.
He’d given me a name. He’d stopped when he obviously hadn’t wanted to. Part of me wanted to say that it was enough — I could trust him, I could let whatever was going to happen, happen. But another part of me held back. He’d outright told me he was keeping a secret that would change everything. For me, for him, and for us.
How strange was it that there was already an “us.”
I put on a new shirt, lay down on the bed. Instead of trying to sleep, I let my mind wander, let it imagine what it would be like to just…let go. To give in totally to what he wanted. Something told me it would be pretty damned amazing.
Just take it one day at a time. That was what I told myself. One day, one experience at a time.
I was aching all over. Needing him to finish what he’d started, refusing to do so myself.
Eventually, as the sliver of darkness between the drawn curtains began to turn gray, I fell asleep. I dreamed of big hands touching me softly. I dreamed of those hands tugging the blankets up closer to my chin, of a tall silhouette in the corner of my room.
When I awoke to a gleam of late morning sunlight, I swore I caught a whiff of his cologne in my room.