Safe Word
Riley was lying on her side with her back facing the door when Ashe slipped into the bedroom. Not wanting to wake her, he had showered in the guest bathroom and was dressed in a T-shirt and lounge pants. He slipped under the covers, grateful for the warmth that welcomed him. Sliding toward Riley as gently as he could, he draped his arm over her waist, loving the feel of the soft lace that covered her body. This was home, he thought, inhaling the scent of her hair and her skin.
For a few moments he lay next to her, and the sound of her breathing told him that she was awake. She’d been waiting for him.
“The collar was from her, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“When you didn’t acknowledge it, I knew.” She rolled onto her back to face him, anger flashing in her eyes. “I threw the whole thing away.”
“Good. It’s where it belongs, in the trash.”
“But that doesn’t change the fact that I felt like an idiot thinking it was from you, even after you’d said that you never wanted that lifestyle for us,” she said. “I should have known, Ashe. You didn’t want to play that game anymore and then suddenly this gift appears, complete with a damn collar. Why can’t she leave us alone?”
“I’ll speak with her tonight.”
Riley frowned, sitting up in bed with the covers tucked under her arms. Ashe leaned his back against the antique brass headboard. “You’re not seriously thinking of seeing her in person, are you?”
“I am,” acknowledged Ashe.
“And then what? Do you honestly believe she’ll leave us alone simply because you’ve asked her? Do you think that’s all she really wants from you: a meeting?”
“That’s all she’s going to get.”
Riley scoffed. “Yeah, right! As if that’s going to change anything. You can’t even stop her from doing all the shit she’s done so far; sending me that damn corset and collar, digging into my arrest record and setting the paparazzi on me. They follow me everywhere, you know, even when I’m with the boys. Not only that, now they’re trying to find out who represented me in that court case. Did you know she paid my father twenty thousand dollars for information about me? I talked to him yesterday and that’s what he said.”
Ashe said nothing. He hadn’t actually known but had assumed so; he just hadn’t realized how much.
“What if she decides to go after Paige and Clint, and the triplets? What then?” she continued. “Suppose she finds out that they’re not Clint’s and spreads that news? Do you know what that would do to the boys?”
“Riley, why do you think I’m talking to her tonight?”
“Do you know what hurts me most, Ashe?” Riley continued as if she hadn’t heard him. “It’s the realization that Catriona and I aren’t even fighting over the same man. She’s fighting for someone you used to be. After this latest trick she’s pulled, I don’t care so much about your shared past but I do want to see the version of you that she wants so badly.”
“I am the same man as I was in that elevator, Riley,” said Ashe. “How many times do I have to tell you that? I’ve left that life behind and I don’t intend to go back to it.”
Riley hugged her knees to her chest. She wasn’t wearing her ring, not that he’d expected her to wear it in bed. “Won’t you even show me?”
“Why would I show you the man I used to be with her? I was another man then, leading a different life. My priorities were different.”
Riley frowned. “That’s going to be a problem, then.”
“Why?”
“How do you expect me to marry someone I don’t really know? How can I marry someone who’s only shown me half of what he is, while he’s busy burying the other half so he’ll always look good to me?” she said. “At least you know who I am. I’m a bastard, a former drug addict who never went to college, whose only claim to fame are the men she’s fucked.”
“Stop it, Riley!”
“You know all about me, Ashe, and yet you’re still here,” continued Riley. “Don’t I deserve to know all about you, too? Even the part that’s not so pretty, that comes with whips and chains and God knows what else? I want to know the part of you that Catriona is fighting to get back. Don’t I deserve to see that and know who the hell I’m fighting for?”
“I’ve told you, that man is gone.”
“Catriona doesn’t think so,” she said. “I don’t think so either. People don’t change that radically.”
“Would I ever ask you to do drugs again?”
She looked away, trembling; then she swung off the covers and got out of bed, striding toward the door.
As she passed his side of the bed, Ashe grabbed her arm. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“I’m going home,” Riley replied. “I’m tired of having to guess what it is Catriona is going to do next or leak to the media. I’m tired of being with a man who won’t show me who he really is because he thinks he should only show me his perfect side. I’m tired of loving a made-up creation that your management team protects 24/7.”
His grip tightened on her arm and she winced. “Is that a threat?”
“I don’t care how you see it. I just want to go home.”
Ashe let go of her arm and watched her continue toward the door. She had almost reached it when he spoke, in a lower, deeper tone. “Stop where you are.”
Riley did as she was told, lowering her gaze as he got up and made his way toward her. He stood in front of her, jaw clenched, and watched her tremble in the silence that ensued between them, goosebumps rising from the skin of her shoulders and arms. “Is this really what you want?”
“I just want the truth.” Her voice emerged as a whisper.
As he studied her, Ashe knew that there would be no turning back. If he was going to lose her anyway she might as well see all of him, even that which had fueled his career. The energy he had once directed into his dynamic with Catriona he later directed into his career and his life; it had been the focus he needed to keep on top of his game.
“Look at me,” he ordered. As she did, Ashe was struck by the vivid blue of her eyes in the early morning light. He was suddenly aware of a familiar tightening in the pit of his belly.
“From this moment until I say our session is over, you will address me as ‘Sir’. You will maintain eye contact with me and give me your full attention. Do not speak until I finish talking and ask you to speak,” he said, watching the expression on Riley’s face change from curiosity to fear.
“You will cease being the person you believe yourself to be when you are with me, your ‘Sir’. Is that what you want?”
“I—I don’t know.”
“Yes or no,” he said. “I can’t be your Dominant if you refuse to be my submissive. I can’t show you what I was like then if you are not willing to be my opposite. A Dominant needs a submissive just as a sub needs a Dom; it’s two pieces of a puzzle. Both of them must be willing; they each have to give consent. Do you give me yours? Is this what you want? I’ll even draft a contract for us.”
“I just want you to show me.”
“You need to give me your commitment, Riley; you need to give me your consent. For the next few hours, you’re going to exist only to please me.” He cupped her chin with his hand, tracing her lips with his thumb before slipping it between her teeth. “All this will be mine.” His other hand lowered to cup her breast. He tugged at the barbel clip that graced her nipple before sliding lower to cup her sex, warm against his palm.
Her fear was palpable now, her lower lip trembling when he withdrew his thumb, coated with her saliva. “I will need a safe word from you: a word that will tell me to stop, that you can’t take any more of what I’m about to do to you.”
“I don’t need one.”
“Safe word, Riley,” Ashe said, tilting her chin so that she was looking straight at him. “If not, this stops right now and you’re free to go.”
For a few seconds she was silent, her eyes searching his face; for what, Ashe didn’t know. Did she expect him to change his mind? Was she searching his face for the Ashe that she knew, the one whose smile reached his eyes? Ashe sighed, realizing now what Catriona was really doing; the knowledge hit him like a punch in the gut. This was how she wanted to strip away Riley’s innocence; by his own hand.
“Red,” whispered Riley. “My safe word, Sir, is ‘red’.”