Down on Her Knees

by Christine Bell

  was one thing; baring her soul, even to her friend, would have to wait for another day.

  “There’s always been tension between you. Probably won’t be any weirder than before,” Cat hedged, slowing her pace until Courtney had to stop altogether to avoid yelling down the hall to respond.

  “Well, luckily, I can take as much time as I need to think about it. When Lacey gets back from her honeymoon, the three of us can hang out and stuff, but I’ll avoid the boys until I’m sure.”

  She kept her tone light, but she felt a bit deflated…hollow inside. Saying it all out loud and sharing what had happened between her and Rafe had felt good at the time, but now it only served as yet another reminder of how amazing it had been.

  And she hadn’t even told her friend the best/worst part.

  After too many solo close calls to calculate, and encounters with boyfriends that had started off so promising but fizzled out too soon, her sexual journey in life had been an exercise in frustration. Until that night when, in less than fifteen minutes, with seemingly no effort at all, Rafe Davenport had used his magic hands to gift her with her first and only orgasm.

  Ever.

  She was factoring that little reminder in with the rest of her jumbled list of pros and cons when Cat grabbed her arm and squeezed, pulling her to a stop.

  “Listen, Court, there’s something I have to tell you.” Her friend’s face was pinched with worry and Courtney’s stomach did a free fall. “And I’m pretty sure you’re gonna be mad.”

  …

  “You want to split a pitcher or you want a scotch?” Shane called over his shoulder as he made his way to the bar.

  “Surprise me.” Rafe picked up his third and final dart, briefly considering whether to walk up to the board and bury it dead-center when Shane wasn’t looking just to fuck with him. He opted against it, mainly because he was feeling pretty grateful to the guy. His phone call had saved him another night prowling around the house, restless as a caged lion.

  Work was stressful, but that was standard during the hotter months. As the temperature rose, so did people’s tempers, and violent crimes skyrocketed. But if he was being honest with himself, it was more than that. Ever since he’d laid the dare at Courtney’s pretty feet he could think of little else. He imagined—or hoped, maybe?—that she was in the same bad way, although it didn’t seem likely. If her absence was any indicator, she’d either settled on a nonverbal “no” or was avoiding him like the plague.

  Neither option sat well with him, and his relief at getting out of the house evaporated instantly. Maybe it was time to admit defeat and move on. He cocked his wrist and let the dart fly just as a low gasp sounded behind him.

  His pulse sped as he turned to see Courtney standing by the hallway leading to the restroom. If her flushed cheeks and shocked eyes were any indication, she hadn’t expected him to be there.

  Cat stepped between them and waved. “Hey, Rafe! You’re here. I wasn’t sure you guys were coming.” She scrubbed her pert nose—maybe to stop it from growing?—and offered him a shaky grin.

  Before Rafe could respond, Shane strode toward them, pitcher of lager in hand.

  “Hey, babe.” He checked out his fiancée, oblivious to the melodrama playing out around him, and let out a low whistle. “You look gorgeous tonight.” He slung his free arm around her and pulled her close for a quick, hard kiss.

  Cat scrambled away and shot a miserable look in Courtney’s direction as she took the pitcher from her man and set it on the long oak table. “Why don’t we go see Sully and get me and Courtney a couple frosted glasses?”

  He waved her off with a grin. “Sit, I’ll get…” He trailed off at her pointed glare and sent her a puzzled look before nodding. “Yeah, sure. Not clear on why this is a two-man job, but let’s do it.”

  She rolled her eyes, mumbling something as she tugged him toward the bar. A second later, Rafe was alone with Courtney.

  He dug deep for a tight smile, but it was rough going because she looked distractingly spectacular. Heels, naturally, just to twist the knife a little. Wedge sandals, to be exact, in a rainbow of colors that made him think of sunshine. And fucking. He worked his way from the bottom up, taking in her tight little body, dressed for the ninety-degree heat in shorts that made him hope a game of pool was in their future and a lemon-yellow halter top that clung to her curves in the best way. Her long thick hair was high up in a sloppy topknot that had him instantly fantasizing about taking it down.

  Or commanding her to take it down for him once he stripped her bare so he could watch those locks tumble loose in a silky waterfall over her full, ripe—

  He put that thought on lock, quick. No point in waiting. He was nothing if not a man of his word, and he’d already broken one vow he’d made to her. He’d keep this one whether she wanted him to or not.

  “So what’s it going to be?”

  She clearly had no clue he was going to be there, and he waited for the platitudes he knew were coming. Maybe she’d give some bland excuse about a hazardous coffeepot she’d neglected to turn off. Or maybe she’d stay for a few minutes to be polite and then fake an emergency at the hospital.

  But he couldn’t have been more wrong.

  Instead, she stared at him like he was a scorpion guarding a cheesecake. A mixture of longing and fear played over her rounded features, and he resisted the urge to comfort her. Offer her more time. But sometimes the best decisions were the ones made when a person relied on their gut to provide the answer instead of letting their thoughts complicate matters.

  Time for your gut check, Courtney.

  “I’m not trying to be difficult,” he said softly. “I can leave if you’re not comfortable.” Because he was a gentleman and she’d obviously been brought here under false pretenses. “Once you’ve given me your answer, of course.” Okay, so maybe not that much of a gentleman. “Yes or no, cupcake.”

  “Why do you keep calling me cupcake?” She wet her lip and shifted from foot to foot.

  Stall tactics. He considered her question and shrugged. There was no harm in answering. “Well, first off, cupcakes can be vanilla, like you. But they’re also sweet—” He stepped closer and let his gaze trail over her from head to heel. “Pretty to look at, and I can’t be within ten feet of one without wanting to taste it.”

  She looked around the room as if searching for an escape route, but when she met his gaze again, she seemed calmer. More at ease. This was it. She was going to say no and walk away. The tiny part of him that felt like he was fooling himself, that all the planning in the world wouldn’t stop this woman from somehow wreaking havoc on his life, felt relieved, while the rest of him ached.

  But she threw him for a loop yet again. “You said it had to be the next time I saw you.” Her tone was matter-of-fact, and the wariness was gone from her eyes. “I’m still seeing you. You’re right in front of me. I should get until the end of the night.” She tipped her chin in challenge and waited.

  He admired her spunk so much he almost let her get away with it. Instead, he pressed, running on instinct.

  “Four separate occasions, at my discretion, chosen from a previously agreed-upon list of possibilities, with the understanding that full-on intercourse is at your discretion. I can’t promise it will change your mind,” he said softly, leaning in close to make sure only she could hear, “but I promise to make you come so hard, you can’t see straight. Over and over. And you can take that to the bank. Last chance, Courtney. Going once.” Her lashes fluttered rapidly and she bit her lip. “Going twice…”

  “Okay,” she shouted before glancing around the room and lowering her voice. “Okay. I’m in.”

  Elation rushed through him, and he fought the basest of instincts, compelling him to scoop her up and carry her out of the place. They still had a lot to work out, and he needed time to plan. He hadn’t been overselling it when he’d told her that he wanted to help her, too. Teaching her to embrace the inner submissive she’d already given him a glim
pse of was going to empower her in a way she couldn’t fathom right now.

  He had to make it perfect.

  And when that niggling little part of him reared its head again, he smashed it down one last time. The details would be worked out beforehand, and there would be no i’s undotted, no t’s uncrossed.

  It would be foolproof.

  Chapter Five

  The next day after work, Courtney found herself staring at Cat, still in semi-shock as her friend shoveled a forkful of Cobb salad into her mouth. She swiped a napkin over her lips and tapped the pen against her knuckle as she glanced down at her smartphone.

  “Okay, we decided that double penetration is a hard no, right?”

  Courtney didn’t answer, the gravity of her circumstances becoming more apparent by the second. What the hell had she been thinking? With the dare in Rafe’s eyes and the fear of letting an opportunity slip through her hands, combined with her own false bravado courtesy of Sam Adams, it had felt so right.

  Terrifying, but right.

  But in the light of day, sitting across from her friend with a sheaf of paper between them now riddled with salad dressing and words like “spanking” and “anal,” she wondered if she’d lost her fucking mind.

  “Courtney?”

  “What?” she snapped back.

  “You’re still mad at me, aren’t you?” Cat asked, leaning forward in her seat, the regret plain on her face. “If I’d known he’d given you an ultimatum or why you were avoiding him, I would never have told Shane and him it was okay to meet us. And once you told me…”

  “It was too late. I know. I should’ve told you sooner, and I already said I wasn’t mad. I’m just having buyer’s remorse, is all.”

  “Come on, it’s going to be fine. This is a generic list, something to give him a guideline. He probably isn’t even into most of this stuff,” Cat reassured her.

  “Says you,” she muttered miserably.

  “This is exciting, remember? That’s why you called me. You couldn’t wait until tonight to start filling it out. Now buck up and let’s have fun with it.”

  She hadn’t been able to wait because of crippling anxiety seeping in once she’d received Rafe’s e-mail that morning. Once she’d seen the kind of stuff on the survey he sent her, she’d needed Cat for moral support. But fun? No.

  Fun was finding a twenty-dollar bill in a pair of jeans you hadn’t worn in months. Fun was strawberry picking on a warm summer day and sneaking a few as you went. Sitting at a diner looking at a BDSM checklist online, sussing out the things she would or would not be okay doing with her new sex-on-the-edge instructor, and assigning them each a rating utilizing the world’s most complex system that ranged from 1-5 but also included question marks, backslashes, and a capital X? That was the opposite of fun.

  Cat sighed and set down her pen. “Look, let’s finish the task at hand, okay? Rafe wants this scanned and e-mailed back to him tomorrow afternoon. If you decide you want to change something, you can do it in the morning after you sleep on it. And if you decide you want to back out altogether? You can still do that too. Just don’t send him the list. No biggie, but at least let’s get it all together so that if you do decide to go through with it, you’re prepared, okay?” Her green eyes dimmed and she set her fork down. “Are you scared? If you’re scared and want to change your mind already, fuck it, we don’t need to—”

  “Nope.” Courtney shook her head and ran a finger around the rim of her water glass. “I’m not scared. Not of Rafe, at least. I’m scared of letting myself trust someone, though. It’s been a long time since I’ve done that. And I’ve never done anything like this.” Maybe it was time to come clean with the rest of it… “Rafe was my first.”

  Cat sat back against her chair so hard it tipped, almost flipping her onto her back. “Shut the front door!”

  She shook her head furiously, “Wait, no, not my first first.” She took a long pull from her glass and set it down before meeting her friend’s curious gaze. “Before the other night, I’d never been able to…finish.” The last was a whisper that seemed to hang in the air like a thundercloud.

  “With a guy?” Cat asked, her brow wrinkled in confusion.

  “At all,” Courtney corrected sheepishly.

  “Wowww…” She opened her mouth, seeming to gear up for a speech, but finally shook her head and repeated, “Wowww.”

  “Yeah, you said that.”

  “I know, but it deserved an echo. How did—” Cat held up both hands and started again. “Like, why didn’t you—” She stopped again and shrugged helplessly. “Some guys suck, and some women are hard nuts to crack, so I guess that part’s not that unusual, but did you not give it the old college try solo?”

  “I gave it many, many tries. College tries. High school tries. Middle school tries. Summer camp tries.” She toyed with the saltshaker absently. “It just seemed like the harder I chased it, the faster it ran.”

  Cat smiled then and patted her hand lightly. “And now Rafe…Jesus, I’m surprised you didn’t knock him over the head and lock him in your basement.”

  That broke the tension as they busted out in giggles at the visual. “Believe me, I considered it.”

  “I bet. And this makes me more excited for you. You like him, right?”

  Like was such a mild word for all the things she felt toward him. He pissed her off, and thrilled her and annoyed her and set her on fire all at the same time. But he was also a great guy. More than once, she’d seen him drop everything to help Shane or Galen move a sofa or build a deck. He was the kind of guy who wound up standing a lot when they all went out because he was the first to give up his chair. Not to mention the fact that he was a bona fide hero. When he’d gotten his commendation for his part in saving that little girl, he’d given all the credit to the rest of the team. And she hadn’t missed the shine in his eyes when the Abbott family, four-year-old daughter included, had rushed in to hug him afterward.

  She swallowed the lump in her throat. Did she like him?

  “Yeah. I like him.”

  “And you’re obviously attracted to him. You’re both unattached and mentally sound. This was an easy sell from the beginning but now? Adding the fact that A: You know he can get you off, and B: No one else has ever been able to, including you?” She swung an imaginary bat and made a clucking sound with her mouth as if she’d knocked it out of the park. “It’s a home run.”

  Cat’s sunshine-and-rainbows view of the situation was rubbing off on her, and she managed a grin. “I guess it seems that way, huh?”

  “It does. And I’m really proud of you for getting back out there. But don’t forget what I said.” Her tone grew serious and she waited until Courtney met her gaze. “A steamy fling should be on everyone’s bucket list, so I’m behind you one hundred percent here. But don’t fall in love with him, Courtney. He wasn’t lying when he told you about the four-scene rule. I’ve never seen him with the same woman twice, besides Monica.”

  Courtney shoved her barely eaten bowl of salad away, her appetite completely gone. “I’ve heard that name twice in the past couple weeks, but never before that. What’s the deal?”

  Cat sighed and shook her head. “She and Rafe met in college. He was studying to be an engineer, and she wanted to teach kindergarten. It got serious fast. They dated for three years and planned to move in together after graduation.”

  Tears filled her friend’s eyes as she paused to collect herself, and Courtney’s heart plummeted to her feet. This wasn’t just a bad breakup. This was something so much worse.

  “She’d made a fancy dinner for Rafe on Valentine’s Day and decided to run out to the liquor store to pick up a bottle of wine. There was a holdup in progress, and when she walked in and the bell jingled, the robber panicked and fired his gun. Monica took a bullet to the chest and died before the ambulance got there.”

  “Oh my God,” Courtney whispered, her own eyes going hot. “Poor Rafe. He must have been crushed.”

  Cat nodde
d. “He dropped out of school a week later, and joined the police academy to spend his life pursuing violent criminals. His whole career is a tribute to Monica. They went to school out in Texas, so I only got to meet her a few times, but she was a sweet girl. He’s never been the same. He keeps to himself a lot, and has told Shane and Galen more than once that he’ll never allow himself to feel that way about another woman again.” She wiped her eyes on her napkin and sucked in a deep breath. “Anyway, that’s the story. I do think you can help each other in ways neither of you has even considered, but you need to be careful. I love you both, and I don’t want either of you getting hurt. Promise me?”

  Courtney nodded. “I promise.”

  “Okay.” Seemingly satisfied with her answer, Cat snatched up her phone and peered down, all business again. “Now back to the survey. Is there anything you think he should know about your sexual history?”

  It took Courtney longer to switch gears, and she was silent for a long moment, still thinking about Rafe and his college sweetheart. How terrible that must have been for him. No wonder he was so adamant about not getting close to anyone. She thought she had a good reason for being guarded. What she’d gone through with Wes had been a walk in the park compared to the pain Rafe had suffered.

  “Courtney?”

  She folded her arms to ward off the sudden chill and focused her attention back on Cat. “Sorry, what was the question?”

  “Anything else about your sexual history that he should know?”

  She mulled that over for a long time before shaking her head. “Nope. Nothing.”

  Her friend looked at her like she’d spoken in tongues. “Uhm, how’s about the juicy nugget you shared with me a few minutes ago? About your ill-fated attempts to get to O-ville? Surely that’s worth mentioning.”

  “It’s pretty personal…”

  “As opposed to telling him whether you like”—she glanced at the survey again—“pony play?”

  She had her there. “Well, that’s a specific question and has a specific answer. Besides,” Courtney added with a sniff, “it would put too much pressure on him to re-create the miracle. I don’t want to make him feel bad if it doesn’t happen again when this is an issue I had long before him.”

  “Okay, if you’re sure.” Her reluctant shrug was enough to make Courtney second-guess herself, but the idea of Rafe knowing that he was the first guy to ring her bell made her about break out in hives.

  “I’m sure.”

  Cat nodded. “Okay. Looks good so far, then. Oh! We forgot to fill out number eleven on page one. What did you say your feelings were on dog leashes again?”

  Courtney groaned and slumped forward to rest her head on the cool Formica while Cat huffed a sigh and called to the waitress.

  “Can you grab us two coffees? And might as well keep ’em coming. I think we’re going to be a while.”

  …

  Nine days.

  Courtney blew the lock of hair obscuring her vision from her eye and gripped the steering wheel tighter.

  Nine frigging days without a single word from him. After all that fuss, all those hours of waiting, anticipating, planning…

  She’d filled out the survey about hard limits and safe words; they’d exchanged medical history forms. Hell, she’d even given him a key to her house once they’d put a system in place to let him know whether or not she wanted him to use it on a given day. All that, and then?

  Nada.

  It was like Indecent Proposal without any of the indecency. Granted, she’d balked at some of the truly outrageous stuff on the questionnaire, but there was plenty left on the table to work with, and he’d seemed more than satisfied at her sense of adventure. Still, maybe it wasn’t enough for him…

  Whatever. She refused to let it shake her confidence. He probably decided—much like she did half the times she thought about it—that this whole thing was a terrible idea and had opted out. Fine. But it would’ve been nice if he’d given her a call so she could stop thinking that he’d let himself into her house and was about to ravage her every time she heard the radiator creak at night.

  Which reminded her, she was going to have to ask Cat to get her key back for her. If things had been awkward before, they’d be more so now that he’d stood her up. Besides, Cat owed her one.

  She adjusted her seat belt and toyed with the radio, turning back on her Rosetta Stone practice CD. It had been her lifelong dream to retire at fifty-five and travel the world, and she was hell-bent on speaking at least seven languages by that time. She’d already learned enough Spanish to eke by—especially if toilets or food were involved—and had just started on French. No way was she letting All Talk, No Action Rafe ruin her day or her retirement plans.

  After yet another hellish forty hours at work courtesy of her new supervisor, who clearly had decided that making her life miserable was priority number one, she needed a break from the shit that had been her week. It was a beautiful summer night and she was exactly three miles from Cat’s family cottage where she planned to spend a relaxing weekend by the lake. She’d been thrilled when Cat had made the offer. Courtney knew she was probably feeling a little guilty for her part in this mess. Who was she to snub the offer if it made her friend feel better?

  She rolled the window down and cranked up her French lesson, letting the warm breeze batter her hair into a wild mess, not giving a crap.

  “La boulangerie,” the disembodied voice blared from the speakers. “Bakery.”

  “La boulangerie,” she repeated, getting her Pepé Le Pew on, making sure to roll her tongue under to get that authentic sound working. It wasn’t great, but it wasn’t terrible.

  She’d just turned down the dark, winding road that also acted as the Thomas family’s driveway and was in the midst of learning how to order a coffee when a noise broke her concentration. An ambulance? Blue and red lights flashed in her rearview mirror, and she groaned. Cops.

  “Sacre bleu!”

  It was like she had the worst luck in the world in this town. First a flat and now this. She pulled to the side, glad that this time there was space to get