What the hell was I doing?

I shuffled downstairs as quietly as I could, zipping and buttoning as I went. I’d taken enough time to scratch out a hasty note and I’d left it on my pillow. He had still been asleep, and I’d lingered just long enough to notice how easily he slept. His dark hair tousled… his slow and steady breathing. I had watched his chest, rising and falling, and I knew I had to get out.

Crazy… fucking crazy…,” I muttered under my breath, as I navigated the flagstones in the weak morning light. “I’m fucking my fucking boss…”

I stopped halfway to the cottage, working to catch my breath. The ocean view was incredible… the water moving back and forth, the salty air reminding me of…

“I can’t do this…,” I said to myself. I’m a mother and I’m a plain vanilla sex kind of girl… Women who have a family to support don’t do things like this… “And they sure as hell don’t beg their boss to tie them up and screw them…”

I ran my fingers through my hair, trying to cover the evidence, taking the rest of the path as slowly as I could. Violet would be awake soon, and Mattie was always up doing yoga before dawn. Hell, she’d probably known better than I had, just what I was getting myself into. Mattie had been into the Dom/sub lifestyle for a while… although I’d only ever known her to be with Rex… Still, there was something about the whole idea that made me squirm inside. It was wrong, wasn’t it? To like that sort of thing? To want to dominate another person sexually, or to be dominated by them?

Except that I could hardly deny I’d never even come close to the kind of pleasure Will offered.

And it wasn’t as if we were strangers…

He’s practically admitted he has feelings for you, I told myself. He searched for you… gave you this job… And he was so amazing with Violet… I reached the back door and looked through the glass. Mattie was in warrior pose, and gave me a bright grin.

Easy for you, I thought, to live on the edge. You’re bright and brave and daring…. All the things I’ve never been. I didn’t have the time… I couldn’t take the risk. Not with a little girl, not when I was too busy being both mother and father…

I opened the door and slipped in, feeling like a guilty thief…

“Hey, girl,” she said, with her usual lightness. She narrowed her eyes and gave me a scrutinizing look that made me feel naked…

“Looks like somebody got all her buttons pushed last night.”

“You don’t understand,” I said again. “He’s my boss and this is a fucking bad idea. Haven’t you ever heard the phrase not to… well not to do what I just did. Again…”

“And you didn’t hear what I said,” she shot back easily. Damn her casual hide…

“I said, it’s completely normal to get a little freaked out. And sure it’s a little more complicated because he’s paying your salary…”

“And providing the roof over our heads,” I added.

“Ok. So it’s not the simplest arrangement. I’m just saying this guy is smokin’ hot and has got an obvious obsession with you.” She tucked a foot under her ass and leaned her arm over the back of the sofa. Violet’s music was soft in the background. “What’s the harm in seeing where this could go? It was amazing, right? You don’t even have to admit it. I can see it all over you.”

I shook my head and reached out for Miri. She was curled up between us, with her soft head resting on my lap. “It was amazing,” I said. “But it’s not the point.”

“How is it not the point?”

“Sooner or later, this job is going to be over,” I said. “And we’re going to go back to Seattle and leave all this behind. I’m not even sure how I feel about all the… well, you know. But to risk getting emotionally attached and then have it all end… Worse still, for Violet to get hurt…”

“Excuses,” Mattie said flatly.

“What…?”

You’re making excuses, not to put a little trust in someone else’s hands for a change.”

“What the hell do you think I’ve been doing with you and Donna all these years?” I asked. “I trust the two of you more than I trust my own mother. The only thing I share with her is a Christmas card…”

“I’m talking about men, and you know it,” she shot back. “You spent the last six years pining after Will. A man who wasn’t around,” she said emphatically. “And you only went out with wimpy little guys who had no will of their own. Of course, you never found your match in any of them. And now that you have, you’re scared to death. I can see that look in your eyes, and I can smell an excuse a mile away… I’m not telling you how to live your life, Angie. I just want you to have a life.

And sometimes… hell, all the time… that means taking a risk. Having the balls to take a chance.

I just don’t want you to run, before you’re really sure what it is you’re running from…”

The rest of the week, I did make excuses. I was too busy with work, too tired at the end of the day… too devoted to spending every spare minute with Violet. I’d been avoiding him, and we both knew it. To his credit, he didn’t push me. It was almost as if he knew the struggle going on inside me.

“Are you sure you can’t come with us?” Mattie asked, as I buttoned Vi into her thickest sweater. Even on a warm day, the wind on the ferry could be cold.

“I’ve got a shipment of furniture coming in at one,” I answered. “Will you bring us back a bag of apples from the market?” I asked Violet. She smiled and let her eyes flicker over mine. “Let her buy flowers, too,” I said to Mattie as I straightened up. “She likes the purple ones.”

“I know what she likes,” Mattie said, with a wink. “Let’s go, muffin. Come on, Miri…”

And just like that, I was alone. On an island with a man I craved like food and water and air. The shipment I was expecting was for his bedroom. The other items were ones I’d chosen as I sat up late at night, unable to sleep. All the finishing touches for the bedroom….and for the other room…

Our playroom, he called it. And it turned out to be amazingly easy to find hundreds of choices. Toys, straps… paddles… I’d gone to sleep at night with disturbing and exciting images that invaded my dreams. More often than not, I ended up having to reach down with my fingers for a fleeting climax before I could drift off. But Will was always there in my mind, in my dreams, looking dark and seductive, luring me into an erotic and frightening world. I would wake up wet and aching for what only he could give me. And as the days passed, it took more and more effort to push away another thought that made my heart pound…

My cycles had always been undependable. And the doctors had told me, after Violet was born, that there was some scarring… They told me it was unlikely I’d ever have another child…

But I’d added one more small item to the thousands of dollars in merchandise I’d ordered. I was sure I was wrong… there was no reason to believe…

But then I was starting to believe in a lot of things

I’d never believed in before.