Page 70 of To Save Him

 

 

 

Chapter Twenty-three

 

BRANDON’S ARMS AROUND me that night were reassuring and gentle, and I marveled at all that had happened that evening.  I wasn’t able to fall completely asleep until I heard Annabel come through the front door.  As was tradition, she lightly tapped on my door before heading upstairs to say, “Mom, I’m home.”

“Night, honey,” I said, loudly enough that she could hear, hoping that she wouldn’t open the door, not knowing I wasn’t alone in my bedroom.

I awoke in the early morning, even before light, much earlier than I usually did.  And, as I tried to go back to sleep but found it eluded me, my mind began to wander—a lot, reminding me of the time when I’d been fighting depression and struggling with bouts of insomnia.  But, after I stopped focusing on that worry, I let my real fears and doubts seep in.

There was one main overarching one and it was this: What the fuck had just happened?  And how?

How had this sweet young man holding me in his arms undergo such a rapid (and seemingly thorough) transformation? It was like he’d gone from a meek and mild (although slightly troubled) guy to a commanding dom too quickly.  The more my mind turned the idea over, the more I wondered how that had happened.  It didn’t seem possible or real.

What was I missing?

I must have stirred enough to awaken him as the room was turning a little lighter.  “Is it time for the morning walk yet?”

Oh, he sounded so sweet.  I had to admit to myself that what had transpired the night before had been one of the hottest evenings of my life.  I couldn’t remember ever having an intense, seemingly never-ending orgasm like that—and I couldn’t recall the last time I’d even been that turned on to begin with.  It was more than the fact that he was a young lover, easy on the eye and hard in all the right places.  It was also more than the fact that I wanted to tuck him under my wing.

Because we’d already had a little “plain” sex and, while that had been amazing too, it couldn’t compare to whatever the hell he’d done to me last night.  The little mind fuck he’d done had aroused me in ways I hadn’t dreamed possible.  Never in a million years would I have suspected that I was capable of enjoying something like that.

So I was torn in my thoughts—suspicious of Brandon on the one hand but intrigued on the other.  Was last night’s game something he’d done before with other women?

I started to sit up.  “Yes, I think so.”

But he pulled me close to him again, nuzzling my neck with his nose, kissing the exposed flesh.  “Let me just hold you for a few more minutes.”

That kind of behavior didn’t help with the growing doubts…but I let him hold me for a little longer while I tried to figure out how to deal with all these strange, swirling emotions.

 

* * *

 

THE HOUSE WAS quiet.  Brandon was at work; JR was still at Cash’s house; and Annabel was asleep in her room later that morning.  I was trying to throw all my weird emotions into the book I was writing, but I instead found my mind wandering over and over to a place I wasn’t prepared to venture to.

I began questioning everything I thought I knew about my young lover.

It started me with thinking first what would make him decide that what he did last night was something that would make him feel better.  There was no denying that a part of me found what we’d done very hot and I would definitely do it again…and maybe even go a step further, doing what he asked in the restaurant the next time.  So he said he’d found some information on a website that made him think he might want to try it, but what normally led others to that choice?  Was it realistic to believe what Brandon had told me?

Those questions naturally took me down a path to wondering even more, and then I asked myself how I would deal with it if I discovered Gabriel being into something a little odd like this.

Based on what Brandon had told me, he and Gabriel had gone through similar situations, the things that had caused his PTSD.  What if all the young men who had undergone the same horrors had found out that a “cure”—or, at any rate, something that eased the sensation—existed, and that could be found in BDSM behaviors?

It boggled my mind…but then made me think even more.

Why had Gabriel not spoken of the unspeakable things he’d been experiencing?

More importantly, why had Gabriel never told me of his friend named Brandon?

All other thought dropped from my racing mind as the realization washed over me, leaving me to wonder just who the hell Brandon Abbott really was.

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