True North (Compass series Book 4) (23 page)

Since I feel like I could vomit into the toilet beside me… “Yeah.”

“Did you tell her?”

“Tell her?” I echo. Why would I tell her?

“Yeah. You know, talk to your partner? Communicate? Have I taught you nothing?” His mellow teasing is half-soothing, half-galling. I bite back the string of profanity that’s gathering in my throat because I can’t have him hang up on me.

“I don’t want her to see me like this. It’s all about confidence, right?”

“You’re allowed to have feelings, Slade. And she’s been doing this longer than you have. It’s easy for her now, but it hasn’t always been. She’ll understand, and she’s not going to think any less of you for it. Maybe more.”

I mash my forehead into my palm because the idea of
talking
, revealing weakness and doubt, makes my stomach heave. And then my heart is leaping out of my chest because there’s a knock on the door, followed by a soft, questioning, “Slade?”

Rey couldn’t possibly have heard her because I barely did, but his next instructions follow as if he had.

“Go be a man. Talk to your girl.”

My girl.
Zelda had called Press that at the Black House, and it had made a wave of possessive pride wash through me. Damn straight she’s mine. My girl. Mine. I don’t like the uncertainty in her voice and I can do something about it. Sometimes being strong means revealing your weaknesses, right?

“Yeah. Thanks,” I tell Rey and hang up so I can peel myself off the floor, my knees cracking in a way that reminds me I’m not getting any younger. Forty-four to Pressly’s thirty-five. Why would she even want an artifact like me? I could understand when she was in college and there was a certain romantic thrill to having a vaguely illicit affair with a guy who was a real grown-up. But now that we’re both full-on adults, I’d think she’d want someone who was closer to her own age, someone to grow old with instead of watch grow old. Because I need something else to be insecure about.

That worry melts away when I open the door and find her standing there, wrapped in a throw that’s too small to cover all of her. I catch glimpses of breast, belly, and expanses of leg before I grip her above the elbow and steer her away from the bathroom.

“Back to bed with you. I should spank you for getting up. You should be asleep.”

She wiggles her butt as she crawls back into bed, and it makes me want to take her over my lap right then.

“I woke up, and you weren’t here. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“I’m fine.” My answer’s a bit gruff and I regret how she bites her lip and looks away.

“Okay.”

I climb in beside her and gather her to my side, an arm wrapped around her upper back to urge her to lie against me, have her hand rest on my ribs, her fingers tracing the bones as they rise and fall with my breath.

“I mean, I’m not sick. I was…” My jaw tightens. My brain might know Rey is right, but my body isn’t so sure. It is so not on board with this whole rolling-over-and-showing-my-underbelly thing. “Did you like what we did tonight?”

“Which part?”

Fuck. That means there was something she didn’t enjoy. Maybe she didn’t like any of it. I’ve started formulating profuse apologies and figuring out how to tell Rey that I fucked up and the whole thing spirals out of control. I’m about to turn myself in to the Metro police as a sex offender when she giggles. “Not like it matters. I liked everything.”

“You did.” It comes out less a question than a statement, but she answers me anyway.

“I did. You’re good at this.”

“So you don’t think I’m a horrible person?”

“No. I think you’re a person who made me come half a dozen times in the course of one night and who seems to know how to press my hot buttons. That’s not horrible at all.”

“So I didn’t make you feel badly?”

She sighs and props herself on her elbows so she can look me in the face. She’s lying so that if she leaned up a tiny bit farther, I’d be able to see her nipples. My mouth starts to water.

“Hey. Eyes up here, mister.”

I mutter an apology because it’s not the sex I have a problem with. It’s all the other stuff, and I think she might have some secret that’ll make me feel better about this. Make it possible to sleep instead of being haunted by worry and remorse.

“Humiliation is a tricky kink. Because if you’re doing it right, you
are
making me feel embarrassed and ashamed. So did you make me feel badly? Yes. But in a way that got me ridiculously hot. And I like how much you get off on it too.”

She chews on her lip. I want to tell her to stop, scold her for her bad habit, but then I’d probably want to fuck her all over again.
Focus, Lewis. Talking, communication. Earn your fucking merit badge.

“Before…” This is code for
When I was your wife
. “…I always felt like you were holding something back from me. Something you didn’t trust me with. I could tell you wanted something, but you didn’t trust me enough to ask for it and it made me feel inadequate, like I wasn’t good enough for you. Like
you
thought I wasn’t good enough. I thought I’d actually managed to marry for love when all I’d been expecting to marry for was duty. When you started to pull away, it was like my worst fear—that my connections and influence were all you’d wanted and you just tolerated the rest.”

I open my mouth to protest, but she cuts me off with a shake of her head.

“I know it was probably more complicated than that, but at the time it didn’t feel that way. I still have to talk myself into believing it. It helps, actually, when we do this. When we do this, I feel like you’re sharing with me. And even when you’re telling me I’m a disappointment and other things, deep down it makes me feel good. Especially because, to the extent you even believe in your heart what you’re saying, you like those things about me and it has nothing to do with advancing your career. If anything, what we do would be a threat to your success.”

She shrugs and shakes her head, her hair falling around her shoulders, over her breasts. I want to hold her close and tell her it wasn’t complicated. I felt like I was a black hole of stomach-churning desires and I didn’t want to pull my star of a wife in and destroy her. But she’s talking and I won’t interrupt.

“It’s hard to reconcile sometimes, though. I’ve been lucky to play with more experienced people who could talk me through it afterward.”

There’s a small spike of jealousy for those who came before me, but more a sinking of my stomach. Aftercare. That is something I’m maybe not so great at. I hadn’t said a word to her, partly because we were both so exhausted, but I should have.

“Press, I’m so sorry. I should’ve—”

“Don’t be sorry. I think because of our…history it’s easier with you. I’m already comfortable with you. I already trust you. So some words of kindness wouldn’t have gone amiss, but I
wanted
them, I didn’t
need
them. There’s a big difference. If I needed them, I would’ve asked. Besides, I’m the more experienced person here. If anyone should’ve—”

I shush her because maybe that’s technically true, but at the end of the day, I’m responsible for her. That’s enough with the should’ves for either of us. I reach for a lock of her hair, twirl the corn-silk softness around my finger, and tug. “Tell me what you need. Tell me what you want.” I can at least get this right.

She smiles and tips her head, pulling against the grip I have on her. Oh, there will be more hair-pulling in the future.

“Well, the holding is a good start.”

I sacrifice the view I have to wrestle her next to me. Wrestle is too strong a word. She comes willingly and snuggles into me. No problem. I like the holding too.

“You could tell me…tell me I’m pretty.”

I can do better than that. “You’re beautiful.”

“Kiss me?”

I tip up her chin and run my nose alongside hers before kissing her gently. It’s sweet. So sweet it makes my teeth hurt and makes me ache for her. Why can I not do this every night? Why can we not do this in our bed? I break the kiss reluctantly, and when I do, her eyes are still half-closed, her pale lids nearly translucent.

“Tell me you l—”

Her eyes snap open, and her throat works like she’s swallowing the words that were going to come out of her mouth.

“Press?”

“Tell me you like this too.”

“I do. Don’t worry about that ever. It’s my own shit I’m working through. It has nothing to do with you. Ever. Understand?”

“Okay.”

“So is that it?”

“Pretty much. You could change it up. You know, kiss me first and then with the holding and the telling-me-I’m-pretty.”

“That would be acceptable, would it?”

“Yes, I do believe it would,” she says in that prissy Southern belle way that used to have me on my knees. It’s a good thing I didn’t know her when she was a debutante because I would’ve been under those skirts quicker than she could’ve said, “Why I do declare!”

“And don’t forget the part about me saying I like this too.”

“Yes, of course. Couldn’t leave that out.”

Her tone is approaching despondent, but that doesn’t make any sense. Tired. She’s probably tired. God knows I am. This whole talking thing maybe wasn’t the stupidest idea. And I only resent Rey Walter a little for suggesting it.

‡

“I
’ve got a
favor to ask you, Hale.”

At least I know what kind of favor he’s going to ask for. I’m totally expecting at some point for Rey to ring me for a professional or personal favor, though what I might possibly do for him in that arena, I have no idea. I’m sure he’ll think of something and eventually he’ll come to collect. But this call is about kink, and I can’t deny there’s a smirk of satisfaction on my face—Rey Walter needs something from me?—when I say the words: “What can I do for you, Rey?”

“I’ve got a client who’s looking for a very specific scenario. I thought you might be a good fit.”

My insides crash like cymbals, pride, fear, all kinds of things jangling around, and it takes me so long to arrange my thoughts that Rey doesn’t wait for me to answer.

“Interested?”

“I’ll need more information, obviously.”

“Of course, but I wasn’t going to bother if you weren’t interested at all. Need-to-know and all.”

“Yeah. Of course.” Thoughts are racing through my head, and clearest among them is Pressly. How would she feel if I did this with someone else? I’ve played a little with a few other people at the club, but that’s more…instructional than anything else. No hint of involvement. But regardless of what it would mean, I suspect the answer would be that she’d feel fine. Is that a relief or not?

“If it makes a difference, I strongly suspect you’ll be amenable to this proposal.”

His words make me strongly suspect a certain blonde is involved, and if so, I’m definitely his man.

“Well, then, I think I need to know.”

And here we are, a week later.

The gloves on my hands feel strange and comforting at the same time. Softest leather I’ve ever felt, but unless it’s winter, I don’t wear gloves. Even when it’s cold enough out, I’m more likely to shove my hands in my pockets because who the hell knows where I’m heading and the chance of also needing gloves there is half-and-half. Seems stupid to prepare for odds so small. These aren’t winter gloves, no—more like driving gloves. If there’s anything more pretentious than driving gloves, I can’t think of what it might be. Normally I wouldn’t be caught dead doing such a thing, but I’m wearing them now. As a favor. A favor I’m willing and able to do.

Gloves clinging to my hands, I push open the door, not bothering to knock. I’m supposed to be the master of this house, and I wouldn’t knock on my own goddamn door. So I stroll in and try not to pay attention to the woman on her knees by the door, thighs spread, rucking her short black skirt so high it almost makes her indecent, and her hands resting palms down at the tops of her fishnet stockings.

I take a turn about the room, studying it, because I’ve only been in here once before. The purple damask wallpaper and massive gilt mirrors are the same, and I feel sturdier, more stable. Perhaps actually capable of pulling this off. Comfortable-ish, I strip off one of the gloves. It peels away like a second skin and leaves my hand feeling cold, empty. So I snap my bared fingers and the woman starts toward me at a crawl.

That alone has me suppressing a groan as she slinks across the floor, the movement of her hips enough to make me think incredibly filthy thoughts, fantasies I might get to make reality tonight.

When she’s settled at my feet, I snap again and she lifts her gaze, blinking those big blue eyes at me. So open and eager, she’s absolutely drool-worthy. I have to back myself up a bit so I don’t slobber all over her. That’s not the scenario we’ve agreed on.

I reach for the snap at my other wrist, and it gives me a little jolt how her lips part when I break the bond. How she can’t tear her eyes away from where I’m stripping the leather from my skin.

After I’ve peeled the glove off, I reach for her chin, take the delicate point between my fingers, and raise her face. Anticipation crackles between us through the small point of contact, and then I do it.