Page 23 of Tormented Dreams

He looked so very different from the sadist she had come to know as he puttered around his kitchen dressed in worn jeans and a snug, burgundy turtleneck top which hugged the delicious contours of his torso.

But Grace liked what she saw, and she wanted to see a lot more of it.

"Have you managed to come to a decision about what we discussed at dinner last night?" he asked tentatively when they finally sat down to eat. "Or have I kept you so busy you haven't had time to think about it?" The grin crinkling his face reminded her of a cheeky little boy, an analogy so far removed from everything she thought she knew about Xavier that she felt another fierce tug of yearning to get to know him better. A whole lot better.

But the kind of relationship he was suggesting wasn't one that was going to fulfil that desire. Was it?

Of course, on the other hand, the hard no, which had been her initial gut reaction had mellowed into more of a maybe.

Perhaps she needed to think of what he was proposing as the first step. Then, a little further down the line, when they werea bit more comfortable with each other, they could revisit their options.

Grace sighed and busied herself by adding cream and sugar to her coffee and stirring it thoughtfully before taking a fortifying sip.

Damn it, he was looking so damn hopeful too, those dark, smouldering eyes of his burning away the final little bit of resistance with their intensity.

Grace braced herself for the inevitable discussion. "I have to be honest; I can't say it's something I've ever had even the remotest inclination to try," she admitted, hedging her bets. "Plus, I don't really understand how it's going to work. You said remote 24/7. How can that even be a thing?"

"Well, for a start, our relationship would be exclusive."

Grace frowned at Xavier over the rim of her cup. "I thought it pretty much already was. I certainly haven't scened with anyone else since I started coming to Club Risqué and didn't think you had either."

Xavier nodded cautiously, a tiny indent forming on his brow, in between his eyes, which was not quite a frown, but more a mark of concentration. "Okay, officially exclusive then. Plus, we would both have a far more explicit understanding of exactly where we stand with each other. What is expected in each of our roles in our relationship."

"So, it would be a relationship then, even if we don't live together? Would it be a permanent one?"

Xavier tipped his head to the side and gestured with his upturned hands in a very Gallic shrug. "Well, as permanent asany relationship can hope to be, I guess, since none of us know what the future holds."

He took her hand in his, and captured her gaze, his own completely earnest. “But I can honestly say I have feelings for you, Grace. Deep feelings. I want you in my life, and I don’t see that changing.”

If anything, that made things even more perplexing. On the one hand, Grace was buoyed by the fact that Xavier seemed to be implying this could be a forever thing and he was fully prepared for that eventuality. On the other hand, would he really want to live all of the rest of his life in some parody of a committed relationship?

"What if things don't work out?" Grace voiced her biggest concern. "If I did agree, and I don't like the way it's going, where do we go from there?"

She pursed her lips and gazed at him seriously, conscious of how the light from the window behind him threw his features into a shadowed relief, preventing her from seeing his expressions fully. "How much say do I get in this scenario?"

Xavier held her eyes with his own. "Of course, there will always be the opportunity to negotiate within the parameters of our relationship. This isn't just about me, I want you to be happy too, Grace," he assured her sincerely as he took a bite of his breakfast.

Grace followed suit, using the eating time to try to get things clear in her head. Could she really be happy in the kind of relationship he was proposing? Even for a relatively short amount of time?

She might be a masochist, but if she was honest with herself, she was a submissive to a far lesser extent.

Contrary to popular opinion, being a masochist and being a submissive were not mutually exclusive. Just because she welcomed pain as part of her sexual makeup, did not necessarily mean she also wanted to surrender herself to the control of a man. Even if they did renegotiate things to something that was more palatable to her, would that always be a stumbling block?

She was strong-minded and had a successful, high-powered job that was probably equal to Xavier's. She was fiercely independent and self-reliant and had lived alone for almost the same amount of time as he had. She was more than capable of making her own decisions and really didn't know how she would react to someone making them for her, whatever the reasons. While she was turned on by a man's domination in the bedroom—or, more often, in the club—she wasn't convinced it was anything she would welcome in her everyday life.

And yet here she was, seriously considering something that was probably the very antithesis of everything she truly believed in.

And why the hell was that? Was she mad?

Was it altogether fair to Xavier that, in her own mind, she was looking at his proposal as a possible 'stepping-stone', a way of promoting and cementing their relationship? An attempt to give him what he wanted, despite the fact that, in reality, it was a million miles away from her own wants and desires, in the hope that she would be able to renegotiate things into something somewhat more appealing later on.

A guilty little voice whispered inside her head… Did that mean she was manipulating the situation?

No, Grace decided. She was just choosing Xavier's scenario as a starting point, and at some point in time, they would compromise, just like any couple in any kind of relationship would do. That's surely what a strong relationship was about after all, co-operation and concession until both parties reached a mutually satisfactory agreement.

Okay, so she wasn't being entirely up front about her own desires to be a mother, preferably with the role of wife coming before it. But in truth, Xavier's rather unconventional idea of having a Master/slave relationship in which the couple didn't ever live together, was so far removed from her own ideas, they weren't even in the same ballpark. So much so that now didn't seem like the right time to bring it up.

And if her conscience was trying to prod her with the whispered truth that hers wasn't even a lifestyle choice, well, right now, she chose to ignore it.

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