Twelve
Tiny fingers wrapped around my thumb and I exhaled, scanning her face as she drifted off to sleep. It took Bryon clearing his throat a second time—more loudly than the first—to snap me out of my daze.
“Sorry,” I whispered, not looking up but feeling his knowing grin. “She’s just so sweet. And she smells so good. And her little lip keeps moving like she’s talking in her dreams.”
Bryon chuckled and dropped his head. “Yeah, yeah. My kid is the epitome of adorable awesomeness, I know. But you’re killing me here. What happened after you two made out like you were under the bleachers?”
I hadn’t seen Bryon in over a year and my heart felt fuller than it had in a long time having him in my apartment. Holding his daughter, Elizabeth, for the first time had stolen my attention from the story I’d been relaying. Everything that had happened to me in the last few weeks all seemed to fade away the moment I rocked her to sleep nestled against me. And yet, it lingered as a shadow in the back of my mind because I knew she represented what I ultimately wanted and I feared I wasn’t on the right trajectory.
“We just kissed,” I replied, looking back down at Elizabeth. “And then we talked a little more until it got cold and he drove me home.”
Bryon’s arms crossed over his chest and he glared at me, his mild smile remaining. “That’s it? No whips and chains?”
I’d told him almost everything about how Leo and I began. As Bryon moved across the room, flopping down in the chair in my little living room as though he’d been there a thousand times, I smiled absently. Relief flooded me knowing we were able to pick up where we left off. I hadn’t doubted for a moment whether or not I could tell him the lurid details of what had transpired with Leo, but there was still that element of liberation. I stood and gently placed the baby in her car seat where it sat on the floor near my sofa. Busying myself by refilling my glass of water, I shrugged.
“We barely even talked about that stuff. It was like we were together for the first time. He was a total gentleman. Incredibly sweet and romantic. He walked me to my door and kissed me on the cheek at the end of the night.”
“So what do you think?” Bryon said.
My brow furrowed before he continued.
“Are you going to see him again?”
“Yeah, I mean, I work Monday so…”
Bryon laughed. “You know that’s not what I mean. Do you like him? Do you want to be with him?”
My face fell and I met my friend’s eyes meaningfully. “I’m worried.”
“Why?”
“Because what if it’s a mistake?”
Bryon moved to the couch and put his arm around me sweetly. “What makes you think it could be a mistake?”
A dark laugh crept out of me. “I don’t know, it just feels like there’s something keeping me from going all in. My track record, for one. Maybe I don’t know how to pick them.”
“Leo isn’t married. Leo doesn’t want to hide you or change you or control you,” Bryon said.
I shot him a look which made him roll his eyes.
“You know what I mean. Not every guy out there is Warren 2.0. When you started the story with, ‘He spanked me before he knew my last name,’ I was on board for this guy solely because I want to hear the kinky details. But I know you, Sloane, I know what you sound like when you’re crushing and you’ve got it turned up to eleven for him. You like him. Why not let it ride and see what happens?”
“Crushing? Indulging in a fantasy and what happened last night are two different things. I didn’t think a relationship was what I was getting myself into when he bent me over a table a few weeks ago,” I retorted with a scoff.
“But isn’t a relationship what you really want? Deep down?” he asked before fixing his gaze on Elizabeth where she slept, directing my eyes to her face as well. “Don’t you want that? Warren kept you from the things you wanted and if you’re not careful you’ll keep yourself from them too.”
His ability to make me see the truth as I watched a yawn take over Elizabeth’s tiny, sweet face made my eyes mist with tears. I did want that. I wanted children. I wanted a future. I wanted to know love—real love—not the watered down promises and tainted emotions Warren gave me for years. I was tired of those left behind nightmares and the loneliness of walking through life without a companion. But fear was always ever-present and the insecurity Warren had conditioned in me still held more power than I’d hoped. I didn’t love him any longer but the ties that bound me to him hadn’t yet come undone.
Bryon squeezed his hand on my shoulder and I leaned into him as a smile chased the tears away. “I’m glad you’re here,” I said into his chest.
“Me too,” he whispered.
Bryon and Elizabeth headed home about an hour later. I couldn’t believe I’d waited so long to reach out to him again. His friendship had been the thing to pull me back to the surface after my parents died and I knew he would be a part of the final climb out of the black hole Warren had left me in to drown. Of course, Leo was a part of that golden staircase I’d been ascending too. With the invasion of new happy thoughts, the ones Leo had managed to drum up with his unexpected mixture of passion and sweetness, old poison still found a way to leech into me. One moment I breathed easily and dug deep to forgive myself for the mud I’d caked my soul in, priding myself on the fact that I’d walked away and moved on, made friends, continued living…but shame crept in each time I thought his name. Each time I remembered his face. Heard echoes of his voice. Recalled the moments we shared.
I hadn’t opened my manuscript since before the party and whenever I considered it, my stomach pitched. I didn’t want to see what I’d written prior to meeting Leo, prior to my attempt to exorcise those demons in an alternative way. I put the chain over the front door and curled up on the couch with a glass of wine. The moment I reached for my phone on the coffee table, it shook in my hands and I dropped it.
“Crap,” I muttered, leaning to grab it as it continued to vibrate. Leo’s name made me gulp. Swiping my finger across the phone, I exhaled heavily then answered. “Hello?”
“Hi.”
The thick rasp of his smoky voice caused me to clamp my lip between my teeth and sink back onto throw pillows behind me. I instantly forgot the shame and the pain.
“It’s late,” he breathed. “Did I wake you?”
“No.”
“Good. I—I was thinking about you. Couldn’t stop actually, so I figured I’d call.”
My heart seized in my chest. I hadn’t ever put it in those terms to myself, but I couldn’t stop thinking about Leo either. Not since day one.
I sighed. “What were you thinking about?”
“Almost Paradise,” he said. “And how next time I hear it I won’t be able to think of anything other than your lips. So I guess really I was thinking about your lips.”
Heat rushed over my skin and I shut my eyes, letting the memory of Leo’s kiss invade my thoughts as well.
“I was also thinking how I badly I want to see you again and I was considering where we should go on our next date.”
My heart swelled with every word so much so that I couldn’t respond to him. I just let his words penetrate me, opening up for him as though he had me tied.
“And I was thinking about Monday and how we’ll be closing at the bookstore together. Alone.”
His voice dipped to a lower register with his last trailing comment and my thighs squeezed together at the implication.
“See what I mean? I can’t stop thinking about you,” he said.
Sex laced his words and anticipation skated across my nerves, causing the hairs on my arms to rise. I’d been envisioning seeing him again since the moment I answered the phone.
“So, Sloane…are you thinking about me now?”
“Yes, Sir.” The title slipped out without warning but the taste of it on my tongue was one I relished. Especially when I heard the little groan Leo emitted before he chuckled softly into the phone. How easily he’d shifted our conversation to be that of give and take. Of compliance and command.
“Very good. Now listen carefully. I want you to touch yourself as much as you want tonight and tomorrow. Come as many times as you like, but enjoy it, because after Monday your pleasure is mine. I’ll give it and I’ll take it away. And you should know, Monday won’t be a picnic—not even close. It’s time we delved a little deeper, don’t you think?”
It was my turn to growl, moaning at the threat that thrilled me as much as sweet conversation and tender kisses. Together we were a pair of dice, both of us landing on different sides, tipping over one hard edge after the other to reveal new facets of ourselves. And yet, we were always adding up to something bigger. Why was I so afraid to let myself wade in his waters?
“Was this your plan when you called?” I asked daringly. “To make me wet and guarantee I’d dream of you?”
“That’s been my plan since the second I met you, Sloane.”
Another breath rolled out of me, this one uneasy and staggered. My brain began to spark, unable to compute him. I suddenly didn’t know how to wrap my mind around who he was or what he wanted. And while I’d enjoyed every second of the attention he offered me, I still felt my insides begrudgingly ripple with a shadow of fear. It was the same feeling I got in my dreams where I was left behind, just moments before I realized I was alone. A mixture of safety, serenity, and utter angst as I waited for the inevitable. Had those dreams that plagued me before I ever met Leo secretly starred him? Was he in the dim driver’s seat—the person leaving me behind after making me feel so secure?
“Sloane?”
“Yeah.”
“What are you thinking about?”
“I don’t understand this. I don’t understand you,” I breathed.
He cleared his throat and though I couldn’t see him, I knew he instantly changed. “What do you mean?”
“I thought you wanted sex,” I admitted. “I thought you were just looking to mark my ass until you got bored. I thought when you handed me medical records that was a very clear admission—confirmation of my assumption of who you were and what we were going to be. Sex. Kink. Fantasy. And I was fine with that. I wanted that. I needed…” My voice broke and faded into nothing but a breath. I heard Leo breathing on the other end but he waited for me to continue. “I don’t understand you, Leo. I keep trying to tell myself you’re not Jekyll and Hyde, but you are. You’re either spanking me in the inventory room or you’re taking me on a moonlit picnic, which is it? You change without warning and I don’t know how to keep up. When I think you’re one man, you’re the other. I like you. I like both sides of you and how you make me feel. I like it all too much and I’m afraid I like it for the wrong reasons.”
Finally. The admission I’d barely allowed myself to think silently left my lips and while my stomach still floated, anxiously weightless, relief began to trickle in. Leo’s silence pounded in my ear as my bold speech swelled in the space around me. I glanced at the clock and the moment I heard Leo’s voice in my ear, I cut him off.
“I have to get some sleep. I have a hair appointment early tomorrow,” I said.
“But, Sloane—”
“I shouldn’t have said anything. It’s fine. Don’t worry about it. Goodnight,” I croaked as I hung up.
My ribs ached as I heard the words that had nearly become my catchphrase when I was with Warren. As my head reeled, I knew I wouldn’t seek to pleasure myself as Leo had suggested. My thoughts raced as shame came back in full force and agony burned through my veins. Bryon was right, if I wasn’t careful I’d be the one to prevent myself from having the things I wanted—and it was only now that my head pounded and tears threatened to break through the wall of emotion around me that I wondered if I was wrong. Maybe the real mistake was shutting Leo out, not letting him in.
***
Wendy’s eyes sparkled as she gaped at me from behind the register when I pushed through the front door. My trip to the salon had come after a night of tossing and turning, attempting to make up my mind about Leo and what I would do or say come today. I kept my color the same, the one I’d changed to as soon as I got to Salem—a rich burgundy—but when it came time for my standard trim, I let a little of Leo’s variability guide me.
“Cute!” Wendy cooed.
As I slipped out of my jacket, I touched my hair bashfully and forced a smile. I moved toward the computer she sat next to and clocked in without a word, but as my eyes swept to Wendy’s, her grin grew.
“New man, new ‘do?” she quipped.
“What?” My voice was merely a breath.
She looked past me and as I followed her guilty gaze, I found Oliver coming out of the office with the same expression. Leo hadn’t waited any longer to tell his brother about us. Oliver clearly registered the apprehension on my face and he pulled his lips tight before shooting a glare at Wendy.
“Sorry,” she whispered. “Didn’t know it was a secret.”
I brushed my hair out of my face again and shook my head. “It’s okay. It’s just—”
Her hand tapped my arm then flitted in the air as though she was clearing away the awkwardness. “No, it was my bad,” she said. “But, for real, your haircut. I’m obsessed.”
Oliver must’ve been the key to Wendy’s cheer as I’d never heard her speak so enthusiastically. When she worked at the store back when I was just a fixture in the corners working on my book and drinking the free coffee, she’d always been nice but never this bubbly. I laughed a little and thanked her. I almost jumped out of my skin when her hand ruffled through my hair, another squeal leaving her as she turned me around by my shoulders to feel the back.
I stood facing the front door, Wendy fondling the back of my neck that now felt every waft of air that travelled over it. Cut close to the nape of my neck, the short style still hung below my chin in the front and swung at a perfect angle along my jawline. I giggled as Wendy continued to fluff my hair up.
“It’s so sexy!”
Tilting my chin back up, I locked eyes on Leo on the other side of the window. His phone pressed to one ear and a black cigarette dwindled between his lips as he stared at me. As bewitched by me as I was by him. I recalled the first time I met him and the faint scent of cloves I’d picked up. Watching as he blew out a wisp of smoke, I remembered the way I’d attacked him then cut him off when we last spoke. He stomped out the butt on the ground and pushed through the front door, never dropping his blue gaze from mine.
Wendy’s hands left my hair and a cold chill ran over me. Leo’s penetrating stare had me glued to the floor and knowing Wendy and Oliver were watching—with newly enlightened eyes—unsettled me even further.
“Well, did you try to give him Tylenol?” Leo said into his phone.
My brow furrowed and I suddenly heard Oliver call out to Wendy to start brewing the coffee. Leo’s lips firmed up and a breath rolled through him before he scrubbed at his forehead, finally tearing his eyes away from me.
“Yes, you should,” he barked. “No…I’m not mad. I’m glad you called. Start with some meds and plenty of fluids, let him lay in my bed and watch Monsters, Inc. and call me this afternoon.”
I sucked in a sharp breath and turned toward the office, afraid to hear any more. I knew it was his sister, Marie, and he was probably talking about his nephew, but hearing that sliver of his conversation made my stomach ache. It sounded like he was talking to the mother of his child. He sounded like a concerned parent and as if I wasn’t confused enough already by my feelings for Leo, the idea of him having a child hurt me deeply.
I heard him approach the office door as I sat down at the computer to start working on my plans for the Calloway Books booth at the Fall Festival.
“Love you too. Bye,” he said before clearing his throat in the doorway. “Sloane?”
I didn’t turn around. I couldn’t. I was on the brink of full-on crazy. Between our date, his orders over the phone, and the way my walls had been raising and lowering like some kind of death-trap obstacle course in a video game, Leo had created the most shocking sense of instability in me. And I knew the only reason he’d gotten to me that way was because I cared about him—everything about him; what he thought, how he felt, who he was, who he made me. Instantly. Irrevocably.
“Sloane?” Leo said again.
“Yeah,” I replied without turning from the computer screen.
“Are you still closing tonight?”
“Yep. That’s my shift,” I snipped. “I have to finish this plan for the Fall Festival then I’m on the register from three to six. You made the schedule, you should know that.”
I heard him sigh heavily behind me and grumble under his breath. “Mouthy.”
Whipping around, I pinned him with a glare, hating the way the sight of him rippled excitement through my belly. “Excuse me?”
Two quick strides and Leo bent over me, caging me in with his hands gripping the arms of the desk chair. His face wore an emotion I couldn’t decipher. His eyebrows cinched close together in the center and shadows cast in his blue eyes. His jaw shifted then clenched then shifted again as though he meant to speak or scream but censored himself. I didn’t see anger. I didn’t see rage. I didn’t even see the full-fledged dominance he’d shown me before. This was different.
“I said, you’re mouthy,” he whispered. With his face so close to mine, I could smell the clove cigarette on his breath. Scanning me with bright eyes, Leo’s tongue slipped out to wet his lips and my shoulders relaxed at the sight.
“I—”
“Be quiet,” he said easily, cutting me off. I gulped and felt that familiar weightlessness in my limbs that Leo’s orders cast on me. “Do you want to stay late with me tonight? If you say yes, you’re saying yes to whatever I want.”
“Leo…”
“It’s a yes or no question. Yes or no, Sloane?”
The gruffness of his tone may as well have been a five ton brick that just fell on the partition around my heart, slamming it to the ground. Obliterating my barriers. I searched his face and as my heartbeat grew erratic, I answered without thinking.
“Yes, Sir.”