Page 81 of Bound By Words

“I can’t have kids either,” he whispered, his lips ghosting against my shoulder. “I got a vasectomy a few months after he was born. I never wanted to put a child through what my father did to me.”

“Nathan,” I choked out, reaching down to cup his cheeks and pull his face toward mine. “You’re not him.” His eyes were sad when they opened, his gaze intensely broken as he looked at me. “You are not him.”

“I know,” he sighed, leaning forward to kiss my lips softly, his lingering as he exhaled a shaky breath.

“You can run now,” he smiled sadly, cupping the back of my head. “I wouldn’t blame you.”

“If you think something that happened to you in your past will scare me away, you’re sadly mistaken.“ Just because his life had been difficult didn’t mean I’d run in the other direction. “What happened to your brother?”

“Honestly, I don’t know anymore. Brad stopped talking to everyone back home once my grandfather died. He took his portion of the inheritance, went to college somewhere in Iowa, and never returned. My sister tried to find him at one point, but he had no social media accounts.”

“Sounds like things were rough for all four of you.”

He nodded sadly, leaning his forehead against mine. “I didn’t want to unload this on you, but I didn’t want to start this by keeping secrets.”

“Anything else hiding in there?” I joked, but his face sobered. When he didn’t say anything, nervous tension ran up my spine. “I was just kidding.”

“My ex is pregnant,” he whispered, his gaze suddenly very serious. My eyes widened as I stopped breathing for a moment. “It’s not mine,” he quickly rushed out, shifting back slightly as he laid his head on the cushion beside mine. “But that’s why I’m here. She told my…” He shook his head, sighing. “She told my former Domme that it was mine.”

“Holy shit, stud. It’s like your life is a telenovela,” I exhaled, and he finally smiled, reaching up to comb his fingers through my hair.

“I needed you to know everything. I don’t want to keep things from you if this progresses past a temporary dynamic. I’m tired of only letting people see parts of me.”

“Thank you,” I whispered, placing my hand over his. “For being honest with me. For trusting me enough to share all that with me. I see you.”

“Thank you, as well, for trusting me with what you went through. I know that wasn’t easy for you to talk about,” Nathan replied.

As he pulled me back toward his chest, kissing my forehead, I wrapped my arms around his back. Snuggling deeper into his embrace, I sighed as he reached over to pull the extra blankets around us.

“I’m trusting you with my heart, too, sunshine.”

Those words, whispered into my hair as I drifted to sleep, should have scared me, but they pulled the bonds attaching my heart to his even tighter. I had to have faith I could trust him to know how to get us through this when we were inevitably separated.

KELLY

Connecticut

The room was colder as I stirred awake, shifting closer to Nathan as I tried to absorb some of his body heat. He didn’t move as I pressed my cold toes to his calf, kissing his chest. I wasn’t sure how to act around him now that it was daylight.

Being trapped indoors last night with the power out had almost made it seem like we were in a different world. I didn’t know how that would translate outside this place, out of being confined together. While it was a big house, we could have easily spent the night apart—not that either of us had wanted to. We’d spent our time getting closer to each other, not just with the hot sex and spankings, but with the words, laughs, and the big truths about our lives we’d shared.

This couldn’t be real. People didn’t fall for each other this fast. Was I crazy to consider that we’d survive this without breaking each other?

“Stop thinking, sunshine,” Nathan whispered as he kissed my shoulder. My skin felt sticky where we’d been pressed against each other all night, but I had zero desire to move. That panic that sometimes built inside my chest when I woke up with a man was conspicuously absent, replaced with the butterflies I often felt when he looked at me. “It’s too early. And it’s too cold to get up.”

“I think the fire went out,” I whispered, reaching down to pull the blanket that’d drifted to my waist up over my shoulder.

He laughed, pulling it up over our heads, leaving our legs exposed, but I didn’t care as he kissed the tip of my nose, a tired smile on his face. “We can stay here all day,” he murmured, fingers skating along my spine. His stomach growled, interrupting the moment, and I giggled, pressing my hand against him.

“I thought we were supposed to be taking care of ourselves,” I teased, my hand drifting lower.

He hissed as I gripped him, his forehead pressing against mine as he stilled my hand. “Behave.”

“What if I don’t want to?”

“Kelly,” he sighed, leaning forward to kiss me as he lightly pressed his lips into mine.

“Call me sunshine,” I whispered against his lips as his eyes locked with mine. “Stay with me in this fantasy for just a little longer.”

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