by Ford, Brynn
"You're not horrible, sweetie," Ris said softly, grabbing my wrists gently and pulling my hands away from my face, "But you are self-sabotaging. You need to tell him."
I shook my head, “I just don’t know how I could. I don’t know how to talk to him about what I’ve done.”
“If he loves you, he’ll listen. If he loves you, he'll forgive you."
“God, I know that. But if I tell him, then…” I trailed off.
“Then what?”
“Then everything with Law is over. And the thought of that scares me.”
“It scares you?”
“Did he…did Law tell you about Lucy?”
Her features softened, “Yeah, he did, hon. He’s told me everything about you.”
“He did?”
My heart skipped a beat to know he was thinking of me enough to talk about me to someone else. Then it dropped into my stomach, making me feel sick for feeling good about that.
Ris hooked her elbow over the back of the couch, resting her head on her hand, “He talks about you a lot, Desi. I think you remind him of someone from his past.”
“Who?”
“That’s his story to share, not mine. Anyway, he really loves you, Desi. He cares about you and he wants you to be happy. Whatever that means for you.”
“He’s never told me that,” I shook my head.
“Because he doesn’t want to scare you away. He doesn’t want to cross the line. He knows you don’t belong to him,” she hesitated before adding, “But he wishes that you did.”
I shrugged, “What am I supposed to do, Ris?”
“I can’t answer that for you.”
“I wish someone could just tell me what to do.”
“Typical submissive,” she joked.
I laughed, “What the hell is wrong with me?”
She reached out lovingly and tucked my hair behind my ear, “Nothing. Nothing is wrong with you, sweetie. You’ve been through a lot in a very short period of time. And you’re so young, honey. I can’t imagine coping with all that you’ve been through at your age. Hear me out, okay?”
I nodded.
“I think you need to tell Vaughn. But you’ll have to do that in your own time, when you’re ready. I don’t want you running from Law either, though. I care about him a lot," she paused, "So much more than you know. And it would kill him if you cut him off entirely. I think you’re good for him. You’ve broken a barrier for him. As much as I hate to see him so out of control like he was tonight, it was good for him. He has some healing he needs to do, too. And I think you’re helping each other. I know being dominant is natural for him, like breathing. But it hasn’t always served him well. Your boundaries with him are forcing him to let go and face some emotional issues he’s been avoiding for years. What I’m trying to say is, I hope you won’t walk out of his life.”
“That’s the problem, Ris. I don’t want to walk out of his life. But I should. I should want that for Vaughn, for our marriage.”
“It’s okay to want two men at the same time, Desi. That doesn’t make you a bad person. It just makes you human.”
“But Vaughn is my husband. I shouldn’t want anyone other than him.”
“Says who? That’s a terribly unrealistic ideal. To think you’ll only ever desire one man for the rest of your life.”
I couldn’t say that she wasn’t making sense, but I had to reject the notion based solely on my previously held values and principles.
“Vaughn is it for me.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“I don’t have a fucking clue.”
“I wanna meet Vaughn.”
“You do?”
“Yeah, I wanna know the man who snagged you.”
“Do you wanna see a pic?” I asked.
She beamed, “Yes, girl. Show me.”
I pulled out my phone and swiped through my photos, coming to a selfie we’d taken together at our wedding. In the image, I was holding up my phone to take the picture, positively glowing with happiness and he was kissing my cheek. A warmth spread through me as I showed the picture to Ris remembering how happy we were that day, remembering how good he always made me feel.
“That’s your husband?” she said, giving me the side eye as she took my phone from me and started swiping through my photos. It didn’t bother me. They were mostly pics of me and Vaughn anyway.
“Girl, he’s hot.”
I couldn’t help my smile as I bit the side of my thumb, “Yeah, he really is.”
“Does he have tattoos under those sleeves?”
I nodded, “Yeah, all the way from wrist to shoulder on both arms. He has one for us on his chest and torso, too.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, it’s a family tree tattoo. He got it for me and Lucy.”
She swooned, “Oh, my God, that’s too sweet. He’s really in love with you, Desi. I can see it in these pictures, the way he looks at you.”
“We haven’t taken any pictures in a while though.”
“It doesn’t matter how long ago these pictures were taken. Love like that, the way he beams at you, that doesn’t just go away. I'd venture to guess he'll be more forgiving than you give him credit for with passion like this.”
She turned the phone to show me one of my favorite pictures of us. It was taken the day we found out Lucy was a girl. In the image I was holding up our sonogram picture that read "It's a girl!" I was smiling brightly at the camera while I took the selfie, but Vaughn was looking at me. His warm eyes sparkled with the look of adoration and gratitude.
"Desi, did you notice that he's looking at you in almost all of these pictures? He's not looking at the camera, he's always looking at you," she put a hand over her heart, "Oh, girl, these are just beautiful."
I bit my lip, looking at the photos with her, really looking at them for the first time in ages, "I love him so much. I hate myself for doing this to him. But Law, shit, Ris."
I started to tear up again and before I knew what was happening, I was sobbing and Ris was pulling me into her arms. She held me and stroked my hair while I cried into her shoulder. She soothed and cared and told me everything was going to be okay. I wasn’t sure I believed her, but she made me feel like I had an ally, someone who understood me, someone who could be my friend without judgement.
“I miss him, Ris,” I told her through tears, “I miss the way it used to be between us. It used to be so easy with Vaughn and now it’s all so complicated.”
“Then you have to tell him that. I’ll bet that if you’re feeling it, he’s feeling it, too.”
“I know that he is,” I pulled away and took another tissue, wiping my eyes, “All he wants to do is love me and I’m just…I’m just so fucking lost. I don’t even know who I am anymore.”
“You’re Desi. And you’re Blue. You’re a woman like any other who’s seen tragedy and is just trying to survive the pain of it. Don’t you think Vaughn would want to know how much you miss him? How much you still need him?”
“He deserves that. I’ve just been fucking up so much lately that I honestly don’t know if I can fix it, if I can fix us.”
“You can’t fix an ‘us’ by yourself. That takes two. I’m sure Vaughn’s not perfect either. I’m sure he feels like he’s screwed things up somewhere along the line, too. Look, communication is what makes or breaks a relationship. It’s not what you’ve done with Law that puts your relationship with Vaughn at risk. It’s that you haven’t told him. For all you know, your husband is a freak like the rest of us,” Ris grinned.
“That seems unlikely,” I smiled, shaking my head.
“What makes you say that? You’ve known each other for what, less than a year? Do you really think a sexy, bad-boy-looking kind of guy like Vaughn doesn’t know a thing or two? For all you know, he could be a future Black Ties member.”
“I really don’t think so. I mean, he’s,” I hesitated to share intimate details about my husband, but felt relief to be able to share openly and hones
tly with someone, “He’s brilliant in bed, Ris, not that we've had much of a sex life lately. He likes to be a little rough sometimes. Well, a lot of the time. But he’s also really attentive and caring. He can be gentle and sometimes he makes love to me so slowly and sweetly…”
I trailed off there, warmth slowly spreading to my core at the memory of the way he made love to me on our wedding night.
Ris finished my thought for me, “Sometimes he gives you such passionate, slow-burning, soul crushing sex, that it makes you think he couldn’t possibly want to get kinky with you?”
I considered that, “Well, yeah. But when you say it out loud like that, it doesn’t sound quite right.”
Ris smiled knowingly, “Because it probably isn’t right, Desi. That kind of sexual connection, it’s enviable, really. Not everyone is so lucky. But the person you have that level of passion with, that’s the person you want to get kinky with. Can you imagine how good that kind of sex with your husband would be after he dominates you and hurts you the way Law does? To be spanked and flogged and dominated and then worshipped and cared for and made love to? That would be a powerful fucking orgasm and you know it.”
“Oh,” I couldn’t deny how right she was, “Yeah, that would be amazing.”
“Don’t be in such a rush to think you have to sacrifice one thing for another. Maybe you can have it all. But you’ll never know unless you start being honest with yourself. And with Vaughn,” she smiled, “And with Law.”
We talked for another hour or so, not just about Vaughn and Law and the mess I’d made of everything in my life, but about lighter things, too. Ris and I became friends that night and I was so, so grateful. She was the kind of person you wanted to be around all the time. Caring, kind, honest, funny, and fierce as hell. She was the kind of woman you were happy to have on your side, but God help you if she wasn’t.
I envied her poise, her grace, her educated and open perspective on the world. She was the friend I needed, a confidante, advisor, and perfect role model for the kind of woman I could only hope to become. My heart was warm for her and it comforted me to know she would have a presence in my life.
She hugged me tight before I left and I thanked her for giving me her time and sharing some of her peace and calm. I’d needed it more than I even knew.
I thought a lot about Vaughn on the way home. I knew I’d hurt him in the way I’d been pushing him away. I knew I needed to find a way to make sure he knew that I still loved him, that he was still my husband and I was still his wife, even if we were struggling to behave like we were now. I had to make sure he knew how much I needed him.
Even though I still felt like I needed Law, too.
Chapter 15
Vaughn
On days like today, when my attention was divided and I was literally bouncing off the walls with excess energy, the monotony of my recent promotion from site worker to management really wore on me. I had to remind myself that this promotion was good for us, for me and Desi and our future family. We needed the extra money so I could start classes for my Master’s degree this winter.
It’s funny that my decision to go back to school in hopes of a brighter future had led me to Desi. For me, that was a comforting memory, one that reminded me that Desi and I were destined to find each other. If I’d waited another semester to apply, she wouldn’t have been on campus anymore. If I’d chosen to move and go to either one of the other schools that had offered me spots in their engineering programs, I never would have been on campus that day. It’s still so strange for me to think that I’d had every intention of moving until just that week when I’d suddenly realized that wasn’t what I really wanted to do.
Sure, I was a whiz with computers and geometry. I was a bit of a closet nerd for that kind of thing. And yeah, I had tons of construction experience and practical knowledge with structural engineering. But somewhere deep down inside, I was an artist. I didn’t just want to crunch the numbers and run load testing, I wanted to design. I wanted to be an architect. That change of heart was the only reason I was there on campus that day, to meet with the director of their architectural design program and convince her to accept my application a few days late. She did, of course, and I got in.
The director had been thirty minutes late to the appointment I’d scheduled and her lack of punctuality really worked in my favor. If I’d left that meeting even a minute earlier, Desi and her tour group wouldn’t have been there yet.
Desi wouldn’t have been walking backward toward me at the exact moment I bent down to tie my shoe.
I wouldn’t have noticed her coming at the very last second.
I wouldn’t have grabbed her ass to push her upright so she wouldn’t topple over my back where I crouched.
Desi wouldn’t have given her high school tour group a lively, impromptu speech on the dangers of walking backwards across campus.
I wouldn’t have been immediately enamored by her charm and perfectly timed wit and fucking gorgeous chocolate brown eyes.
It had all been fate, destiny, meant to be. And I couldn’t have been any fucking happier at the hand the universe dealt to me. But then everything went to shit and there we were. I was still working everyday to keep the faith in our happy ending. It was hard, but I wasn’t giving up. We may have been losing battle after battle for our marriage, but that didn't mean the war was over.
I got off the train after working a late evening and walked the two blocks to our apartment building. The button down shirts I had to wear to work now made me feel like I was being strangled. I loosened my tie and undid the first button of my shirt as I entered our building. There was a sign on the elevator telling me it was out of order, again, but it didn’t bother me to take the stairs to our seventh floor apartment. It was a good way to burn off some of this extra energy I had building up from the tedious twelve hours I’d just spent at the office.
I shrugged off my blazer, laying it haphazardly over the crook of my arm and took the stairs at an easy jog. I hardly broke a sweat, but the initial rise of endorphins helped me switch from work mode to home mode.
Getting my body moving always put me in a better mood. It also kept me from flying off the handle and losing my temper with her. Desi deserved to have my calm, my steady, my positive, and my playful side at home. Even if she had been acting strange and sneaky and secretive lately, it was all the more reason to remain her steadfast rock through the chaotic storm swirling all around us.
As I reached the seventh floor landing, I wondered if I might be able to convince Desi to go for a run with me after a late dinner. I wanted to do something with her and I needed to move, but I guessed sex would be off the table because it had been for a while.
I’d tried to start something a couple of times and she’d try to fake her interest for my benefit. After the night of the fake-orgasm-heard-around-the-world, I had no desire to seduce her if she was just gonna pull that crap again. I was trying to be patient with her, I really was. But it was getting harder every day.
I really missed connecting with her that way, in the physical sense. I felt like I couldn’t express myself with words in the way I could with my physical attention. I wanted to be respectful of her space and her boundaries, but it would be a lie to say that I wasn’t feeling neglected and horny as hell.
I opened the door from inside the stairwell, walking down our hallway on floor seven. I reached inside my pocket to pull out my keys and headed for our acceptable living space at the end of the hall. I inserted my key in the lock, but before I could even turn it, the door flung wide open from the inside. Desi was standing there in the entryway, smiling at me.
“Hey, babe,” she said, stepping aside to let me in.
It put a huge smile on my face to see her so happy. She was just standing there, ready to greet me as I came home to her.
What the fuck changed since I went to work this morning?
I don’t even care.
I started to pull the strap of my messenger bag off my shoulder,
still holding my jacket over my arm. I didn’t bother to free my hands of my belongings before leaning down to kiss her forehead. I let my kiss linger, inhaling as my lips pressed against her warm skin, filling my nostrils with the scent of her magnolia and sweet pea shampoo. She was fresh from the shower and she’d taken the time to dry and style her long hair in soft waves. She'd even put her make-up on.
Not sure what's happening, but I like it.
I had initially sensed some hesitation in her when my lips met her skin, but then, without warning, she pressed close against me. Letting go of the outside edge of the door that she still held open, her tiny arms wrapped tightly around my waist.
“I missed you, Vaughn,” she said quietly into my chest.
Those words were fully loaded. The mixture of sadness, exhaustion, love, and longing in her tone told me that she didn’t just mean she missed me today.
She missed me.
She missed us.
She missed this.
Those simple words were a powerful affirmation that I was still something to her, something worthy of being missed. She held me tighter, desperately clinging to me as if she were afraid I would run away. The way her body melted into me for the first time in ages set me on fire. I dropped my jacket and bag, letting them fall haphazardly on the floor, so I could wrap my arms around her, pulling her impossibly close.
I let out a breath I think I’d been holding in for weeks, “I missed you, too, baby. I missed you so much.”
Desi burrowed her face in my chest as my arms tightened around her. I kicked the door shut behind us and just held her.
I wanted to kiss her.
I wanted to drag her to the bedroom.
I wanted to strip her, fuck her, make love to her.
I wanted to bury myself so deep inside her that we wouldn’t know where she ended and I began.
I had every intention of doing so, but I knew I had to tread lightly. I desperately wanted to drown myself in this rare affection from her. If I wasn’t careful, I could pull her under with me in our desperation to feel. Desi wasn’t strong enough yet to break the surface and come back up on her own. She clung to me like a life raft in a turbulent sea of grief. It was my job to stay afloat for her, to give her something she could cling to until she made it back to shore. Everything between us in the moment was desperate and delicate and dangerous.
