Truth By His Hand

by Casey Cameron

  “Okay, I…that’s…really good to hear.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t say it sooner. I was afraid, for a lot of reasons. I didn’t…” He drew in a long breath, faintly shuddering, and I ached to have him with me.

  “Could we do this in person? I—I want to see you.”

  He let out a weak laugh. “Yes, let’s…do that.”

  I rushed over to the shoe rack, pulling my shoes to the floor as I tried to jam my feet in them far too fast. “I’ll be there in 18 minutes.”

  “See you then,” he said, a smile pulling at his words and pulling so much stronger at my heart.

  20

  I made it in 16 and a half minutes.

  When Ellison opened the door, I didn’t even give him a chance to speak. Somewhere between that text and his door, I’d found a level of courage I never realized I possessed. I pushed my way into his house like a charging bull, shoving the door shut behind me as I fixed him with a defiant stare.

  “Say it.”

  His brows pulled together. “Say what?”

  “You know what. Say it.”

  Understanding flashed across his face, and he glanced down at the floor, looking more shy than I’d ever seen him before. His shoulders rose and fell, and he lifted his eyes to mine, sweet and blue and endless. “I love you.”

  I dove forward so quickly I nearly fell, but his arms caught me, propping me up while I sagged into his embrace, a long, shaky breath stuttering out of me as I squeezed him against me. “Thank you,” I whispered.

  “I love you,” he repeated, his nose nudging up against my ear. “And I’m so sorry it took me this long to tell you. You deserved better than that.”

  “This long?” I pulled back slightly to look at him, but his arms were tight around my waist, so I relented, keeping my body pressed to his. “How long has it been?”

  “It’s been…since the party. When you found me with Kayla.” He buried his face in my neck, his lips soft and ever so gentle, pressing kisses into my skin between his words. “I walked into that room and saw the look on your face—saw how badly I’d hurt you—and I realized that…I would do anything to keep from hurting you again. And then I went and did it anyway with silence and distance, and I’m so, so sorry.”

  “It’s okay.” I pulled at him desperately, like if I squeezed hard enough I could pull him into me, keep him there and never let him go. “I know you weren’t trying. I know you didn’t mean to.”

  “Whether or not I meant to, I should have done better. And I swear I will do better in the future, if you’ll let me.”

  I puffed out a humorless laugh into his shoulder. “I think we both know I’ll let you do anything you want.”

  Ellison finally pulled back from me and inspected me with a deep frown on his face. After a long, uncomfortable moment, he raked his hand through his hair with a sigh. “We should sit down. I was just making some tea—would you like some?”

  “Everyone wants to give me tea,” I muttered. He gave me a curious look, but didn’t ask; I shrugged. “Sure, tea sounds good.”

  I sat at his massive dining room table, running my fingers over the curved edge of it. The table alone was nearly the size of my whole kitchen, and I was struck, not for the first time, by how different our lives were, how different we were. I wanted to believe that our differences were like puzzle pieces—the tabs and notches complementing each other and forming a bigger, better picture—but what if we were the wrong pieces? Maybe we were both nothing but notches, looking for tabs to fill the void.

  Always with the shitty metaphors. We were people. Just…people, trying to muddle their way through a relationship neither one of us fully understood.

  When we were both armed with steaming mugs of tea, he gave me a long, considering look, his chin propped on his hand. It reminded me of that first date, when he’d looked into all my secret places and dragged out my darkest fantasies with nothing but the look in his eyes. This time, though, he wasn’t smiling.

  God, I missed his smile.

  “Did you mean that? That you would let me do anything?”

  I shrugged. “Within reason, I guess. I mean, if you want to literally cut off my head and serve it on a silver platter, I’m probably going to safeword out of that.” I gave him a weak laugh, but he didn’t return it. I rubbed at my forehead, frowning. “You know that I’m completely stupid over you, Ellison. I love you, and I want to give you everything.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

  “Don’t—” I cut off into an exasperated groan. I thought we were done with this. “Don’t do that. I’m a big boy, and I can make my own decisions. And okay, maybe I’m prone to caving on the individual day-to-day things, but you know what? I’m still making the decision to be here with you in the first place. I’m choosing you, and everything that goes along with that.”

  “Everything that goes along with it, or everything you think goes along with it?” His eyes were narrowed, sharply focused and burrowing into me with overwhelming inevitability. “Are you going to ask me to tie you up again?”

  I felt like he’d slapped me. My cheeks stung; my eyes prickled. “No. Maybe. I don’t—”

  “Because I don’t want to,” Ellison said, every word deliberate. “It’s not on the table, and I need you to understand that.”

  Fear lanced through me; it was like standing on the edge of a crumbling hillside, scrambling toward the safety of Ellison’s arms at the top. “I could have done it,” I said, hating how defensive I sounded, how desperately plaintive. “I never used my safeword. I could have handled it.”

  “But I couldn’t!”

  I jumped at the sudden force in his words, my mouth dropping open at the wild look in his eyes. “You…”

  “I was terrified, River.” He reached across the table and caught my hand between his palms, hot from the tea and slightly damp with sweat. “I know you think you could have handled it, and maybe you could have. I know you’re strong. But you have to understand…ever since I started doing this, my greatest fear has always been that someday I might hurt someone in a way that can’t be fixed. So I’m careful. Deliberate. I don’t want anyone’s trust in me to be misplaced.

  “But I’ve never been with anyone quite like you, River. Someone who went down so easily, so naturally, who gave me so much before I even asked. It made me greedy. I wanted to take more, wanted to…to possess you, consume you. I wanted to hurt you—truly hurt you—simply because I knew you would let me.

  “Seeing you falling to pieces like that because of something I’d done…I was afraid I’d finally done it. Hurt someone beyond apology, beyond repair, just because I could.

  “And the thing is—” Ellison drew in a shuddering breath, his grip on my hands so tight it almost hurt. “The most terrifying thing is I still want to. I’m still so greedy, and I want every part of you—even the parts you shouldn’t give. So please, you need to understand that there’s a point where I need to stop. I need to keep you whole and safe so I can have you, not just all your pieces.”

  The sight of his face, so raw and open and sincere, made my chest clench with fierce, clinging desire. “But what if I want to give you all my pieces? Because I do. I don’t want to hold anything back from you.”

  “Then give them slowly—we’ve got time, and I swear I’m not going anywhere. Maybe we can try rope again someday if you truly want to, but if you ever go to that place again, I’m going to stop. I can’t send you spiraling into a panic attack and stay whole and healthy myself. I couldn’t do that to a stranger, much less to someone I love. It’s just too much for me.”

  I sniffled miserably, my eyes feeling hot and prickly. “I just wish I could’ve done it for you.”

  “I know,” he said, giving my hand a gentle squeeze. “I’ve told you before, and I’ll tell you again, as many times as it takes: I don’t need you to push your limits like that, because you’re already giving me everything I need. Every gasp, every twitch, every ‘yes, sir’—everything
you do thrills me, and it doesn’t matter what those things are, as long as they’re for me. So please, give me what you can—no more. And I’ll do the same for you.”

  “I’ll try,” I whispered.

  Ellison pulled my hand to his mouth and just held his lips against my knuckles for a long moment. I could feel his pulse against my skin, a quick, trembling rhythm that matched the fluttering of my own heart.

  When he finally broke the contact, he looked strangely hesitant again. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to give you.” He ran his hand through his hair with a quiet sigh. “For a couple weeks now, actually. I just kept second-guessing it. But…”

  He shifted in his seat, digging in his pocket for something he set on the table with a muted clack. When he lifted his hand, I saw it was a key. Shining and bronze and mundane, but so very immense.

  "Is this what I think it is?”

  "It’s a key to my house,” he said with a nod. "I wasn't sure if I should, wasn't sure if it would...turn this place into another space you can't let go in. But if you can, I want you to feel welcome here. I want you to be able to come here any time, without waiting for an invitation. This is...I want you to have as much access to me as I want to have to you."

  I swallowed as I looked at it, heavy as lead on the table.

  "You don't have to take it if you don't want to," he said softly. "I don't want you to do anything you're not comfortable with.”

  “Screw that," I finally said, reaching out to snatch the key up. "You gave it, I'm taking it. No backsies."

  “Are you—”

  “I swear to god, if you’re about to ask me if I’m sure, I’m going to throw my tea in your face.”

  He raised his hands in supplication, a small smile on his face, soft and unmeasured and unplanned.

  I turned the key in my fingers, considering it carefully. “I don’t know if I’ll use it. I’ll have to think about…what that might mean. But I like that you gave it to me, and I’d like to keep it. Just as a reminder, if nothing else. That I mean something to you.”

  “River,” he said, his voice achingly tender, “you mean everything to me.”

  He leaned forward in his chair, reaching out to me. We were far enough away that he couldn’t quite reach me on his own, not without getting up. He looked uncertain, like he wasn’t sure I was going to bridge the distance between us.

  Ha. As if I could do anything else.

  Our lips connected in a gentle caress, both of us cautious, both trying to remember all the ways we fit together. Tabs in notches. Big picture kind of stuff.

  Maybe the metaphor didn’t apply. Honestly, I kind of stopped having coherent thoughts for a little while there.

  The whole world was just his lips on mine, his hand on my cheek, the tiny muffled sound he made when my tongue brushed over his lip. I wanted to keep that sound in a box under my pillow and listen to every night before I went to sleep. He felt so good, so mine. I poured everything I’d been feeling over the last few weeks into my kisses, all the doubts and all the ways he soothed them, all the love and all the terror it inspired, and all the warmth and joy drawn out of me by his hand. All the truth between him and me.

  “I’m sorry,” he gasped when we broke apart, lips damp from our silent conversation. “I’m so sorry I tried to keep you at a distance when I knew you wanted more. I was scared, and I know that’s no excuse, but I’ll do better. I—I might still screw it up sometimes, but you matter so, so much to me. I would regret it for the rest of my life if I lost you because of my own stupid mistakes.”

  “No more secrets or lies of omission, then? You promise you’re actually going to talk about your feelings and tell me what you’re thinking sometimes?”

  With a quiet chuckle, he said, “I promise I’ll do my very best.”

  “What are you thinking about right now, then?” I said, my tone challenging.

  His lips parted slightly, hesitation painted clearly on his face. He clamped his mouth shut again and glanced down, his brow furrowed.

  That hesitation, that worry…it broke me, just a little. After everything we’d just been through, everything we’d just talked about, he was still afraid to open up? How were we going to make this work when he couldn’t even answer a direct question? How on earth could I trust him to volunteer anything?

  But then he raised his head again, and I could see it wasn’t that at all. He was uncertain, yes, but there was no trace of reluctance in his expression. Just…concentration. Like he was working through a sticky math problem.

  “I was thinking,” he said after a long pause, his words careful and slow, “about the issue of personal space. About the future, and how we might…it’s early to think about this, I know, but it’s just the way I work—I can’t help but plan for the future and account for potential problems.” He drew in a long breath, like he was centering himself. “If you can’t let go in your own safe space, and you can’t sleep in someone else’s, then maybe a fresh start would help. Somewhere that isn’t mine—somewhere that’s ours. Maybe that would be a little different, enough that you could relax. Especially if you had, say, a room that was just for you. Somewhere that I couldn’t touch. I don’t know, it’s still a little muddled, but you asked what was on my mind.”

  I swallowed hard. “Are you talking about…moving in together?”

  “I—yes, sorry that wasn’t clear. Like I said, my thoughts are a little muddled.”

  “Wow.” He wasn’t the only one, apparently.

  “I don’t mean to sound like I’m getting carried away. I know it’s early. I’m not…trying to jump into things, or push you at all.”

  “No, no, that’s fine,” I said, rubbing my forehead. “I get it. It’s just…god, that’s so fucking sweet of you.”

  “It’s just pragmatism.” Was that a trace of self-consciousness I heard in his voice?

  “Okay, but from you, pragmatism can pass as sweet.” I grinned at him, and was relieved to see his face relax a little from the faint, tight worry that had been plaguing it. “I don’t know for sure if it would work, but it sounds like it has potential. I’ll…it’s another thing to mull over. Let’s see how things go with the key, I guess.”

  Ellison nodded, and I drummed my fingers on the table for a second, chewing on my lip as I tried not to get distracted by the fact my pinky nail was long enough to tap against the surface. It grated at the edge of my consciousness, but I managed to keep it there at the edge because…holy shit, Ellison wanted to move in with me. That was some huge, important stuff right there. And I had no idea if what he suggested would work or not, but Mariah’s advice floated back to me: there were always other ways of looking at a problem.

  The thing was, whether or not this solution was viable, I just loved that he was even thinking about it. That he could see a future with us together and was willing to jump through hoops to make it happen. I loved it so fucking much.

  “So…what are you thinking?” There was that edge of uncertainty again in his voice, that soft little part of him that he so rarely showed me.

  “I’m thinking I love you.”

  “That sounds like a cop-out.”

  “And I really want to kiss you again.”

  “Tempting,” he said, his eyes dancing. “But also a cop-out.”

  “I’m just…thinking about what you said. I like the idea. And I like that you’re thinking about it. I really don’t have many coherent thoughts beyond that.” He gave me a dubious look. “Promise. Empty head. Useless River.” I rapped my knuckles against my head, feeling the brush of my hair against them. I swept my palm over the top of my head without a trace of self-consciousness. Ellison saw me, saw all my quirks and flaws, and he still wanted me. I didn’t have to hide from him.

  “That’s fair,” he allowed with a small smile.

  “I really am thinking I’d like to kiss you, though.”

  The smile he gave me was warm and indulgent and just a little bit hungry, and it lit up all the dark places in
me with brilliant joy.

  We went to the bedroom, fell onto the bed, and simply…kissed. For a long, long time, wrapped up in each other, we just let our lips and tongues tangle, slow and fast and everything in between. It took almost no time for me to get hard—as was always the case when Ellison was touching me—but it was a distant sensation, a low, dull throb that was almost pleasant in its way. I reveled in it, in all the ways he could affect my body with his kisses and his love and his pain. I drank him down, eager for every drop of tenderness he gave me but perfectly content to wait for him to give me more.

  When our kisses grew deeper and more heated, his hand cupped my throbbing erection, and I arched up into his touch even as something tickled at the back of my brain, a thread of desire wholly unrelated to his hand on my cock. His other hand fisted in my hair, pulling my head back hard against the pillows, and—oh yes, that was a little closer. He drew a circle with his tongue around the edge of the plug in my ear, then bit down on the lobe hard enough to make me gasp and moan, just a little taste of the pain and delight I knew he could give me. Everything was perfect but not quite, dancing at that edge where the slightest nudge could push me over, if only I knew which way to push.

  “Ellison,” I gasped, but no more words came. There was just this roiling want, slowly taking shape while I watched, terrified of what it might mean and what he might do.

  Did he really want everything I wanted to give him?

  He must have seen it in my face, because he took his hand off my cock and circled it around my wrist, pinning me to the bed with unbearable gentleness. “What do you want, River?” He leaned in close, his breath hot on my ear. “What do you want me to do to you?”

  I arched against him, my breath lightning-quick. What didn’t I want him to do to me? I wanted everything; I was consumed by pure, greedy hedonism, and his kisses alone would never be able to satisfy me.

  But above it all, I wanted to give myself to him. Utterly, entirely. Every needy scrap and shameful secret. Everything I’d never been able to give to anyone.