To my relief, she nods. “I forgot my keys.”
I bring her inside and sit her at the kitchen table where I just agonized for hours. “What do you want? Coffee, tea, hot chocolate?”
“I want you. I don’t care about anything else, not even what we’ve built.” Her eyes water. “You were right. Our relationship is more important.”
She looks defeated. That isn’t what I want. She shouldn’t have to give in just to keep me. That’s probably what Rich expected from her. I lean back against the counter. “I’ve given it some more thought.”
“Wait. Before you continue.” She puts the backpack on the table and unzips the top. “These are for you.”
She pulls out three thick journals in varying shades of brown leather.
“Halston.” My chest tightens with anticipation. “Are those . . . full?”
“I didn’t bring them all. I started when I was fifteen, in counseling.” She picks one up. “This was the first one. It’s flowery and juvenile. Hormone central. So, it sucks.”
“Can I read it?”
She swaps it for a bigger one. “This one’s emotional. Angry, not sexy. It’s from when I moved out of the denial stage. Each book has a personality.”
“What’s that one?” I ask of the third journal.
She looks at me from under her lashes. “It’s . . . darker. When the guilt over my mom gets too much, I write in here. It’s more explicit than what you’ve read so far. There isn’t much in here, because it’s not a place I go very often.”
Like a conditioned response, I salivate. My greedy hands tingle. I’ve devoured what I have, and getting more feels like a gift. “Did you bring them for me to read or just to torture me?”
She takes a breath as if steeling herself. “You can read them. I want you to. This is what I hide from others, but I don’t want to hide from you. If it’s too weird for you—”
“It won’t be.”
“You don’t know that. If the dark corners of my mind freak you out, I have to know now.”
“I mean, what are we talking here? Sex with animals? Incest?”
Her mouth falls open. “Finn. God.”
I can’t help laughing at her reaction. “Well, you’re making it sound dire.”
She stacks the books on top of each other. “They’re just words. Fantasies. It doesn’t mean I want all of this, but sometimes it just bubbles up.”
“Just because I take photos of a park bench doesn’t mean I want to fuck it.”
She blushes, looking down. “Before I met you, I would’ve burned these before I let anyone see them.”
“Why, Halston? Don’t you understand everyone has fantasies? Everyone has at least one dirty, dark thing they want that they won’t even admit to themselves?”
“Yes,” she says. “Why do I have to be one of those who admits it, though? And then shares it? Broadcasting it is like stripping in public and asking people to evaluate me.”
I did the right thing deleting those comments. I decide here and now to do it with every post so she never questions herself like this again. She’s come so far since we met. “I know opening up isn’t easy, but you might find it to be a good thing.”
She picks up the “flowery” journal. “When I was younger, I got so excited about stuff. I wanted everyone to experience my favorite books, movies, plays the way I did. People made fun of me.”
I rub my jaw. This isn’t something I can relate to as a man, except that I have a daughter turning nine. Already, I’ve noticed her feigning disinterest in “uncool” hobbies, like the sticker collection we’ve been working on since she was four. It reminds me of the eight-year age gap between Halston and me. “Then you should be even more proud of yourself.”
“Sometimes I just wonder if being myself is worth the price tag.”
Her honesty is brave. I wish she could see that. It’s taken a toll on her—the things she said earlier, the way she ran off instead of talking to me, this deep-rooted fear of being abnormal that’s stuck with her so long. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t concern me, especially with how quickly she weaned herself off her meds. I’ve bitten my tongue about it, opting instead to monitor her behavior for warning signs that she’s not handling it well. Nothing up until today has really worried me. But are there things going on in her head that even I don’t see?
I clear my throat. “Have you thought about talking to someone about that stuff from your past?”
“I spent ten years talking to someone about it.”
“Not your mom. The other stuff.”
“We talked about all of it.” She frowns. “Why? You think I need to go back into therapy?”
“No,” I say quickly. She’s already wary of people telling her what to do after enduring a decade of it with Rich and her dad; it’s why I haven’t brought this up before. “I just meant you can always talk to me about any of that if you want. No judgment.”
She nods distantly and after a few seconds, says, “Maybe I do need to go back. I’m sorry about earlier. I think . . . this isn’t easy for me to say, but my moods are a little more extreme now. I don’t know if it’s still withdrawals or just . . . who I am.”
“Withdrawals?” I ask. “You haven’t mentioned any before.”
She lifts a shoulder. “I’ve had a few headaches. Nausea.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“It’s nothing major compared to some of the horror stories I’ve heard.”
I want to take her in my arms again, soothe it all away. It doesn’t feel like the right moment for touching, though, not while she’s working through her feelings. “I still want to know,” I say. “Will you tell me when it happens?”
She nods. “This afternoon, I overreacted.”
“So did I. I just wish you hadn’t run off like that.”
“I understand. I’m going to leave these with you.” She shows me the journal. “We can talk tomorrow, or whenever you get to them—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” I push off the counter. “Nah-uh. You’re not going anywhere.”
“I can’t deal with watching you read them. If you hate them, if you find the behavior ‘alarming’—”
“I shouldn’t have said that.”
Eyes down, she raises her palms. “It’s fine. I just need to know now, before I get any deeper with you.”
“I don’t think you understand just how deep this goes for me. I’m at the fucking bottom here. So don’t try and convince me of what I want.”
She looks at me finally, small and lonely in her chair, swallowed up by her puffy coat and scarf. She’s still wearing her mittens for God’s sake, like she’s about to make a quick exit.
I pull a chair in front of her and start removing her gloves. “I mean, incestuous fantasies would be an adjustment for me, but it’s not enough to scare me off.”
She smiles. Her fingertips are cold, so I bring them to my mouth, blowing hot air on them. “If you’ll agree to let me control the photo shoot, then my answer is yes.”
Her eyebrows meet in the middle of her forehead. She glances at the journals. “Don’t you want to read them first?”
“You don’t have to hide from me.” I don’t have to think too hard to figure out what’s in the journal. She mentioned her guilt. From the start, Halston has responded to dominance in the bedroom. I’m sure whatever she’s ashamed of involves some kind of punishment for her past. I’ve never been into BDSM, but I’m sure as hell not about to walk away from the possibility of exploring it with her. “I’ll never think you’re strange for what turns you on.” I squeeze her hands in mine. “It’s human nature.”
“Thank you,” she says softly. “I’m sorry we fought.”
“I wasn’t hearing you. When you brought up money, it got to me because you’re right.” It’s my turn to look away. It’s not about the money. I hate that it’s been a year, and I still haven’t booked any solid, non-commercial work or sold anything off my website. I meet her eyes again. “I want you to
know, I’m still doing fine. But I can’t live like this forever. I need more money to come in.”
“It’s not my place to say,” she says. “I don’t know anything about money. My dad gives it to me when I need it. He pays my rent and most of my bills. I have a 401k and a brokerage account, but his people manage it.”
Having been one of the Wall Street guys her dad would hire, I don’t like the idea of that. It’s just another way to control her. “Get your bank information from your dad,” I tell her. “You shouldn’t put that in someone else’s hands.”
“I wouldn’t even know where to start.”
“I’ll teach you everything you need to know about your finances. We’ll go through it together. And about Rich . . .” I inhale a breath. On this, I don’t want to budge. But when she was out there, being pissed, I promised myself I would try harder to be more understanding. “Tell your dad when you’re ready. As long as you and I and Rich know the arrangement, I can live with it a little longer.”
She smiles. “You’re so good at taking care of me.”
Fuck fuck fuck. My chest aches. Nobody ever said that to me, not my mom, definitely not Kendra. I’m not even sure Marissa will think of me as a good dad once Kendra’s through with her. Halston’s hands are nice and warm in mine now. I kiss the place where her palms meet. “We’ll do the photo shoot. I need to have final say, though.”
“You will.”
“There’s a right way to do this, I knew there was, I just didn’t even want to entertain the idea. I’ve tried so hard to separate money and art. I don’t like them to overlap, because it feels cheap. And the thought of putting you out there like that for other men to look at worries me, but that goes without saying.”
“I promise, Finn, nobody gets me but you. I’m yours to share with the world, not the other way around.”
“I’m not sharing you. You’re mine, and that won’t change.” I unwrap her scarf from her neck, and her hair frizzes with static. I smooth it down. “I would’ve gone to look for you, but I didn’t know where to start. I don’t even know exactly which block your apartment’s on.”
“I wasn’t there long. It doesn’t feel like home. I got the journals, then walked around until I ended up here.”
“You should give up that apartment.” As soon as I say it, I know it’s right. I want our lives merged for real. This will be the first step toward showing everyone—exes, parents, children—this is real. “If we fight, if we piss each other off, I want you to come back here. Always. No matter how bad it is. Even if it means I’m banned to the couch.”
She doesn’t hesitate. “My lease is up in March.”
“Do you think it’s too soon for us to move in together?”
She answers with a small, goading smile. “Totally.”
“March it is, then?”
She stands and floats onto my lap, into my arms, her laugh soft and angelic. “I got your message.”
“Which one? I sent like eight.”
She kisses my cheek. “You know which one.”
I whisper her own words into her ear. “When you’re gone, there is no light.”
25
I can admit when I’m wrong.
At my desk in the studio, I browse the twenty images I’ve just edited, chosen from more than a hundred taken yesterday. I may be biased, but my girlfriend wears lingerie like no fucking other.
In one of my favorites, Halston stretches in a doorway, her arms over her head, fingers resting on the doorframe. Her head is turned to the side. A curtain of white-blonde curls covers her face, stopping right above her breasts. The sheer, black leotard—or bodysuit, as I was told—has a faint lace design that conceals her nipples and a neckline that dips to her belly button.
I was nothing but professional. I spent the entire session with a hard-on and didn’t even touch her.
Halston comes into the studio in head-to-toe sweats, the same pink color of the Mont Blanc I bought her, spooning yogurt into her mouth. She sits on my knee. “They’re beautiful, Finn.”
I have no better word to describe her. “Yeah.”
The black lace is stark against her white skin and colorless hair. The pieces curve smoothly with her hips and breasts. Her nipples point through a nude silk negligee. Her tummy is flat in a baby pink bustier with black garters that connect to matching thigh-highs.
“I’ll be honest, some of the stuff they sent looked pretty unattractive in the box, but fuck. Who knew bodysuits could be sexy?”
“I did. That’s why I wanted to do this.”
I laugh. “Fair enough. Did you also know Butter was sending thongs? They would’ve shown your entire ass.”
She holds out her spoon. “Have some yogurt.”
I loop an arm around her waist and pull her deeper into my lap. “Will they let you keep them, even though we didn’t shoot them?”
“You can’t have it both ways,” she says.
I slip a finger into the waistband of her sweats and slide it down her crack. “Can’t I?”
She freezes. I don’t blame her. We’ve discussed each journal she laid out on the table last week except the “dark” one. I’m in no rush to get through them, but I’m only human. I’ve had my nose stuck in one any time she’s not around. She probably thinks I have a problem, since my erection’s going strong each night she gets home from work.
I give her ass cheek a squeeze and change the subject. “I need to share one of these today. Valentine’s is ten days away and we promised ten posts.”
“Bodysuit,” she says. “Men looking for gifts will need a few days to get used to it.”
I slide a pen and notepad in front of her. “Write the caption while I upload the photo to my phone.”
“You think I can just snap my fingers and come up with something?” she asks.
“Kind of. You’re a pro like that.”
“No, I’m not.” She pushes the notepad away and tries to get up. “Actually, I’m really not, like not at all.”
I keep her in my lap. The tautness of her muscles tells me something’s wrong, and I can take a pretty good guess what it is. She must’ve read a comment or message she shouldn’t have, which means she’s checking our posts faster than I’m able to catch the bad stuff. There’s rarely anything negative, but I never know when it’ll come. I have to be more vigilant. “What happened?” I ask.
She sets her yogurt on the desk and looks out the window with a sigh. “I don’t know. It’s not coming as easily as it did.”
I tilt my head, trying to see her expression. Maybe this isn’t about our photos. “What isn’t?”
“The words. I used to be able to sit down and let it flow. Even when it was a couple words or lines, writing something down cut the tension in my body like scissors to string.”
“And now?”
“Nothing. The blank page stares at me. I can practically hear it laughing.”
“But . . .” I put my hand on her shoulder. “We’ve been doing this for months and you haven’t mentioned this.”
She shifts toward me. “Because you’ve gotten almost everything from my journal. What happens when we’ve used all the passages?”
Now that I think about it, she’s right. I almost always turn to her journal, and the few times I’ve asked her for a caption, it’s taken her days to get something to me. “We won’t run out,” I assure her. “There are hundreds. Plus,” I slide my hand inside her sweatshirt, “now I’ve got even more to work with. I know I haven’t mentioned it yet, but I’ve been reading the other journal.”
She shudders but pushes my hand out of her top. “I’m serious, Finn. What if I’m all dried up?”
“You’re not, believe me. It’s probably just . . .”
She rubs the inside of her elbow. There’s a dry patch of skin she absentmindedly scratches when she gets nervous. “What?”
I cover her hand with mine, lacing our fingers together. She got self-conscious about the itching when I brought it up, so I’ve figured out other
ways to help. “Well, things are good between us. You’re happy, so maybe it’s a little harder to create.”
She considers this a few seconds before nodding at the images on the screen. “But you can create. Does that mean you aren’t happy?”
“No. It just means I work differently than you. Look, don’t worry about the caption. I’ll go find one.”
“Aren’t you getting tired of having to look through my stuff for each photo?”
If I could only put into words how not tired I am. How I could page through her thoughts for hours on end, envisioning how she was before me, then us together, then our future. When I think of her words, I feel as though I could photograph her for weeks and not run out of ideas. Briefly, I wonder if the opposite is true for her. Does my work not inspire her? Not even a little? I kiss the side of her head. “I’ll never grow tired of it.”
I get up, and she takes my place at the computer. I find her journals in the kitchen next to yesterday’s mail. On the top of the pile is a check from Butter Boudoir. Five grand. Everything I told Halston is true—I don’t have to worry about money just yet, but half this payment will cover almost a month of rent, and I earned it doing something I love.
I glance over my shoulder and open the journal she described as explicit. From what I’ve read, it’s mostly what I suspected. There are entries about the sting of a hand on her ass, being bound and helpless to her lover’s whims, and even some that walk the line of force. I hadn’t expected the anal, though.
Face down, you won’t see my shame,
But you’ll know with each tight forbidden thrust
By the blush that spreads
Down my spine.
I have to look up at the ceiling a moment to ramp down my arousal. I’m going to whittle her down to nothing if I don’t stop fucking her at every turn. I don’t have to ask if she’s ever tried anal. The tense of her body any time I’m in the area tells me she’s not sure she wants it. It’s not the only thing in the journal that caught me off guard, though. I flip to the middle, to a passage about several hands and mouths on her at once. I had to read it a few times to process it.
Tempt Me: A First Class Romance Collection Page 25
