She gave a soft laugh. “Yes, it’s okay.”
“Then go to bed. Santa won’t come until you’re sleeping.” I walked over to the wall to turn the lights out, and watched in the darkness as she crawled under the sheets. “If you need anything, come get me across the hall. I’ll leave my door partway open.”
“You can sleep here if you want,” she said. “It wouldn’t bother me.”
“I prefer to sleep in my own bed,” I said as kindly as I could. It still sounded like a rebuff. “Believe me, you’ll be more comfortable here. I’m impossible to sleep with.”
Or rather, I didn’t trust myself to sleep next to her. That was the long and short of it. “Good night, Ashleigh,” I said, forcing myself to turn around and leave her lying there, tingling butt and everything. “Sleep tight.”
Chapter Nine: First Session
I woke up in Liam’s bed. I vaguely remembered him carrying me there after my third bawling nightmare. I assured him they weren’t nightmares about him, or what he’d done to me with his strap. They were nightmares about my father. Liam had soothed me and held me, and told me that it would never happen again. My waking brain knew that. My sleeping brain sometimes forgot.
In a way it had been a relief to talk about my past to Liam, to have it out in the open, but his questions brought up a lot of buried memories. Liam laid beside me now, one arm around me and the other thrown over his head, muscular even in sleep. His chest was an expanse of bronze, smooth skin bunched into tight abdominals at his waist. His eyelids twitched every so often. Dark circles shadowed his eyes.
I watched him for a while, studying the sculpted planes of his face. This handsome, charismatic man was going to try to heal me. Eventually, I guessed, we were going to have sex. I knew I was in good hands with him, that he would be careful. I believed he could help me. But oh, I felt guilty for keeping him up half the night.
I slid from beneath his arm and used my dancer’s grace to slither off the bed without jostling him. I tiptoed to the door and back across the hall to the guest room with Liam’s shirt billowing around my knees. I brushed my teeth and used the bathroom, and went out into the hall to make my way downstairs…after one last peek into Liam’s room. He’d turned over but he was still asleep, half in and half out of the covers. My God, he was a beautiful man—and I was around a lot of beautiful men at the dance studio. He was beyond a beautiful man. He was—
“Ashleigh. Good morning.”
I spun to find Mem standing behind me, holding out a fluffy white robe.
“You’re like a ninja,” I whispered.
He only smiled at me. “I trust you slept well? Come downstairs. Mr. Wilder often sleeps late.”
I shrugged into the robe. It dragged the ground but it was warm and comfy. I followed behind him in my bare feet until Mem turned around. “Slippers. I’ll get you slippers.”
“No, it’s all right.”
“We have some. He gets more as gifts than he could ever wear.”
He drifted soundlessly into Liam’s room and came out less than a minute later with a new pair of slippers in a box. They were huge but I wore them like flip-flops, flapping off the back of my heels.
“Coffee or tea?” he asked when we reached the kitchen.
“Water.”
“Ah,” he said, smiling. “You are a pure one, I remember.”
I had no idea what he meant. He clearly honed this mysterious and slightly offbeat image. I sat at the stool I’d sat on the night before. It was a credit to Mem that I didn’t feel awkward or embarrassed during this morning-after breakfast. But when he finished setting toast, fruit, and water in front of me, I decided to set the record straight.
“Me and Liam aren’t going out or anything. I didn’t sleep with him last night.”
Mem glanced up at me. “No one sleeps with Mr. Wilder.”
I had actually slept with him, but only in a messed-up, crybaby kind of way. The man turned to the refrigerator. “Would you like eggs, bacon? Waffles?”
“Do you have any peanut butter for the toast?”
Peanut butter was promptly delivered on a small plate with a fancy silver knife. I spread it on my bread, looking up at Mem from under my lashes.
“Tell the truth,” I said. “You’re one of those guys who looks harmless on the outside, but really you know twelve different ways to kill people.”
One eyebrow lifted ever so slightly. “Twelve? I know at least thirty ways. Thirty-two, if I apply myself.”
I smiled as he puttered around the kitchen, wiping counters, rearranging plates and bowls as if reluctant to leave me alone. “Where are you from, Mem?” I couldn’t place his accent or his slightly ethnic look.
“I am from the United States. From the Midwest, like you.”
A bit of peanut butter stuck in my throat. I wondered if Mem was the one who’d gone to Cowskull to dig up dirt on me. “You’re Native American,” I realized.
“Somewhat,” he replied. “I have a lot of different blood in me. Like you. Like Mr. Wilder. Ah.” He looked up as he spoke his name. “And so he joins us.”
“Good morning, Mem. Or afternoon,” Liam said, looking at his watch. His gaze found me next, with a directness that made me shiver. I felt struck dumb by the sight of him. I didn’t know why. This was our neutral ground, he’d said, but things didn’t feel neutral any longer. He was freshly showered, dressed in jeans and a long sleeved dark green tee that hugged his muscles way too much. I looked around for Mem but he’d disappeared again. Ninja.
Liam crossed to me and stroked a finger down my cheek. “Better today?”
I nodded. “Much better. I’m sorry I wrecked your sleep.”
“I’m sorry I wrecked yours. You seemed like you calmed down at the end. I didn’t snore all night, did I?”
“If you did, I didn’t notice.”
Liam went into the kitchen and started making an omelet with all kinds of extra stuff. Mushrooms, peppers, cheese, and pieces of bacon. I watched him, chewing on my toast.
“How come Mem doesn’t make your breakfast?”
Liam chuckled. “Sometimes he does. I think he’s more concerned with giving us privacy at the moment.” He looked up at me. “He’s my most trusted friend, Ashleigh. He’ll never talk about what goes on here, but he knows pretty much everything.”
“He knows about me? About why I came here last night?”
“No.”
“Was he the one who went to Cowskull?”
Liam sighed. “Don’t worry about that, okay? Your privacy is assured. As for Mem…” He flipped his omelet and shrugged. “He can be very insightful. Don’t let it bother you.”
“When I came here last night, he said I was…I don’t remember. Itchy? Icky?”
“Ishi?”
“Yeah.”
His mouth tensed as he nudged the omelet onto a plate. “Mem says a lot of weird stuff like that. Take it with a grain of salt.”
He called you Ishi too. Why don’t you have a home, Liam? I didn’t say it. He didn’t look like he wanted to discuss it further.
“So, did Santa come?” he asked a little too brightly. He craned his head to look at the far corner of the living room. Last night, in the dim light, I hadn’t even noticed the tree. It was a real tree, albeit sparsely decorated. I sensed Mem’s involvement. “Damn,” Liam said. “Nothing. I was too naughty again.”
I laughed as he brought his plate and a cup of coffee around the counter to join me. He slid into the seat beside me with a broad smile. This was my cue to joke with him and be cute but I had nothing. I took a sip of water. “I think Santa only comes for kids.”
“I think you’re probably right. Anyway,” he said, gesturing around, “I already have everything I need. If I don’t have something, I buy it.” He looked at me. “Do you buy presents for yourself?”
“No. But on Christmas, sometimes, I let myself eat bad foods.”
“Bad foods? What is that? What’s a bad food?”
“Chocolate. Co
okies. Ice cream.”
He flashed me a conspiratorial grin. “I have all three of those here, and more. What do you want? Ice cream?” He shoveled in another bite of omelet. “I have, like, eight flavors in the freezer right now.”
“Ice cream for breakfast? That’s bad behavior and bad food,” I said. Bad behavior. That called to mind a whole slew of other thoughts. Heat bloomed on my cheeks and I looked away from him.
Liam had hit me with a strap last night.
Not only that, but he’d touched my legs and made me open them, and spread my arms out at my sides. I was so hot afterward, so wet. So confused. The sting of the strap had been nothing compared to the throbbing ache in my pelvis, all because he’d hurt me and made me lay a specific way. When I looked up he was staring back at me.
“We don’t have to start today unless you want to,” he said. “If you want to go home and think things over a little more first…”
“I want to start today.”
There, that was blunt enough. He smiled his casual, everything’s-great smile and nodded. “Okay. I’m looking forward to it. Maybe after a little ice cream.”
I wasn’t exactly looking forward to it. It was more like my Sleeping Beauty performance, hoping to survive it without fucking up too bad.
*** *** ***
Up in the room, he took a chair from the table and dragged it to the middle of the floor.
“Sit.”
He meant me. I flopped over in my slippers with the oversize robe still bunched around me. This didn’t feel very sexy. I sat in the chair and as soon as I did, he sprawled on the bed. He leaned back against the pillows and waited for me to meet his gaze.
“We’re going to start by talking about personal boundaries. Mental and physical.”
Hm, that wasn’t where I’d expected us to start, but it didn’t matter. I put on my listening face.
“So, you’re over there,” he said. “I’m here. There’s space between us. How do you feel?”
“I feel okay.”
“More specific.”
“Um…”
“No umms,” he said a little sharply. “Think and then talk.”
“Well, now that you seem irritated, I feel nervous.”
“Okay. And what’s your reaction to that? Do you want to come closer to me?”
I told the truth. “No, not really.”
“So distance, physical boundaries, can help us to relax. To feel safer.” He vaulted off the bed and came to stand directly behind me. “How do you feel now?”
I couldn’t see him. I couldn’t see his expression or what he was going to do to me. “I feel a lot less relaxed.”
He moved around to stand in front of me. “I’m all up inside your boundaries now, aren’t I?”
I nodded, looking up at all six and a half feet of him.
He reached to touch my cheek, a soft, caressing slide of his fingertips. “You’re doing great, Ash. You’re listening. You’re focusing. Good job.” He dropped his hand. “So, when I was praising you and stroking you, it was a lot more pleasant to have me in your boundaries, wasn’t it?”
I touched my cheek where he’d touched it, then flinched as he crouched down in front of me.
“You have these boundaries around you all the time,” he said. “We all do, especially when it comes to our bodies and sex. Yours are probably thicker than most because, from a very young age, you learned not to trust. But when you trust someone…even if you don’t trust someone…you can choose to let those boundaries down. What you experience and what you feel doesn’t come from other people. It comes from you.”
He waited a moment, until I nodded at him. He put his hands on my thighs. I instantly tensed.
“I crossed your boundaries when I did this,” he said. “Now you decide if it’s okay or not. But don’t base it on other experiences. Am I hurting you?”
“No.”
He slid them up a couple inches. “How about now?”
“No,” I forced out, wondering when he was going to stop.
“Take your robe off, baby.”
I stood up and he helped me. He slung it over the foot of the bed and had me kick off the slippers too. I felt a little chilly without the warmth of the robe. He nodded back at the chair and I sat down in his long, baggy tee shirt. He put his hands back on my thighs. “Feel different?” he asked.
“Yes, definitely different.”
He nudged my legs apart and knelt between them, his front pressed to mine.
“I’m so far inside your boundaries now, I can feel your heart beating,” he said.
I didn’t answer, just stared into his gold-amber eyes.
“You have to try to think a new way, Ash. For so long, you’ve thrown up boundaries around anything related to sex. You’ve associated physical intimacy with something bad. Something you didn’t want. But you have to teach yourself that’s not the case.” He moved even closer, put his arms around me and rested his head against mine. “Does this feel good or bad?”
“Good,” I said automatically, but it didn’t. It felt scary, threatening. “Bad,” I said, amending my answer. I wasn’t supposed to lie.
“Okay.” He didn’t sound angry or disappointed. “Bad in what way?”
“It feels bad because I don’t know what you’re going to do next.”
“You think I might do something scary? Something you don’t like?”
I hesitated. “Maybe. I don’t know.”
He was quiet a moment. “Do you really not know?”
I pressed my cheek against his. “I don’t think you’ll hurt me.”
“You’re right.” He pulled back from me. “Do you want me? Am I attractive to you? Desirable?”
I stared into his intent gaze. “I— I—”
“I’m not asking if you want me to fuck you this minute. I’m not asking if you want me to hold you down and stick my cock in you. I’m asking if I please you. If you want me. If your body feels that you want me.”
My breath stole out through my lips. I clenched the inside of my thighs, remembering his hands and his violent kisses. Remembering the strap. “Yes. I always feel like I want you.” I flushed, but he went on very matter-of-factly.
“So you want me, and you’re not afraid I’ll hurt you. This is a great thing between two people.” His hand moved on my waist, up and down in a soothing, steady motion. “There are a lot of names for it. Chemistry. Craving. Attraction. Lust. None of it has anything to do with pain or fear. Right?”
I shuddered a little. “Then why am I afraid?”
“Exactly.” He eased away from me. “Let’s try something else. I’m going back over to the bed.”
He left me and I relaxed a bit, but I felt the loss of him too. He sat on the edge of the bed, leaning back on his arms. “I want you to take the shirt off and come over here.”
I opened my mouth to demur, to remind him I wasn’t wearing anything underneath but panties. His raised finger stopped me cold. “We talked about obedience yesterday. Do you remember?” His low voice contained a warning note.
“But I—”
“Ashleigh.”
“But—”
“If you keep talking back over a little thing like this, I’ll punish you.”
I hugged my arms around my waist. “You’re not letting me speak.”
“Because speaking isn’t required.”
“This isn’t fair.”
“Power exchange is rarely fair. That’s kind of the point. Are you finished?”
This was the dominance I’d wanted, the dominance I’d asked for. I could submit or I could leave. I didn’t want to leave, but I didn’t want to take the shirt off either. I felt safe in his shirt. There will be times you won’t feel comfortable in here…
“I’ll repeat it one more time. Take your shirt off,” he said clearly and slowly, “and come over here to me.”
My shoulders tensed as I reached for the hem and pulled his tee over my head. For a few moments I held it in front of me, and
then I dropped it on the chair. I felt cold, naked. Frozen. When I looked at Liam I expected him to be groping me visually, but his eyes were still trained on mine. I scratched my cheek, balled my hands into fists, and made myself walk over to him. It was only once I was there, standing in front of him, that he dropped his gaze in a cursory inspection of my body. I wanted to shrink into myself. I was so skinny. Very small boobs. My butt was okay but I was wearing ugly cotton panties.
“How do you feel now?” he asked.
“Horrible.”
“Why?”
I bit the inside of my lip. I didn’t know why. Because I’d made him angry, and I felt too vulnerable. This was what he was supposed to be helping me with!
“I know this is hard,” he said. “I’m making you operate outside the boundaries you’re comfortable with.” He took off his tee shirt, revealing the muscular chest I remembered from gawking at him in bed. He’d seemed harmless then, in sleep. He seemed less harmless now.
“Okay,” he said. “We’re both naked from the waist up. Look at us.” He smiled, tracing a finger over my hip. “Pretty hot.”
I took in his broad brown chest, his dark nipples and masculine dusting of chest hair. By contrast I had a skinny, pasty chest, pink nipples and no chest hair. One of us was hot, anyway.
“Come here,” he said in little more than a whisper. “Let’s do some touching.”
He drew me against his chest. I stood between his legs and leaned into the heat and scent of him. It was a relief not to be exposed. He ran fingers over my back, smoothed them down my spine while I held on to his shoulders and stared at the wall. He felt so warm and solid. His muscles moved against my skin and I felt my nipples draw up tight. He leaned back to look at my face.
“You’re beautiful, Ash. In case you didn’t know that.”
I didn’t know the correct response to compliments in this little game we played. “Thank you for calling me beautiful,” I said, taking a stab.
“I’m not calling you beautiful. You are beautiful.”
I didn’t really believe him. I deflected. “You’re beautiful too.”
He drew back and traced a hand down the center of my chest. “You want me to touch you.” He nodded at my taut nipples. “Your body does, anyway. Your body doesn’t care about boundaries. Only your mind.”
Waking Kiss Page 11
