Page 3 of Theirs

“It was a sex club and I apparently learned a lot about myself that night,” he said, looking down at his plate. “That's when I got my first look at Doms and Dominatrices. Vincent explained he was a part of the community.”

This is not how I had expected this conversation to go. I nodded for him to keep going.

“I didn’t plan on going, but when I went back to New York, I needed to go back,” he said, looking up at me, his brows furrowed, looking almost scared. “I watched a woman dominating a man and it has stayed with me ever since.”

“Did you do anything with someone?”

“No, Camila, I didn’t touch anyone,” he said quickly. “I just looked, and I know we’ve discussed strip clubs and how we were both fine with them. If you're upset, I completely understand, I just…”

“Why haven’t you said anything before?” I took another sip of my drink.

“I didn’t want to ruin the progress we had been making.” He grabbed his glass, swirling the liquid, but not drinking. “I honestly haven’t thought about it until Vincent called a few weeks ago. I didn’t mean to blurt that out at therapy, I don’t…”

“Hey, it’s ok,” I said, getting up from my chair to slide onto his lap. “I might have been mad if you had told me before we started therapy and you're probably right about not telling me before. I know we are in a much better place now than we were a year ago.”

I cupped his face, his soulful brown eyes still looked worried.

“I’m glad you told me, because if this is what you want, then maybe it's something we need to explore,” I said, running my hands through his hair.

He pulled back, studying my face. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah, I mean I didn’t look at porn for nothing,” I chuckled. “But no more secrets and we have to be honest with each other.”

“I can’t believe you looked at porn,” he chuckled.

“It was terrifying,” I shuddered.

“It’s probably all staged,” he said, cupping my face in his large hands.

“I hope that it was because it was slightly terrifying,” I said, running my hands through his hair.

“Thank you for taking this so well and not?—”

“If you can’t be honest with me, then we have a problem,” I said. “Keeping secrets hurt us before and I don’t want that to happen again.

Luke smiled and it felt like all was right in the world. He kissed me until I was breathless. I just hoped I wasn’t making an enormous mistake.

2

Luke

Ilove my wife, she was everything I wanted and more. Even when we struggled, I was always grateful life had made us cross paths. Going to therapy cemented that belief even more, and I am grateful we decided to work it out. I should say, she decided to stay and work it out, because I never once thought about divorce.

It had been a couple of days since our session where I blurted out my deepest, darkest secret. I don’t know what came over me, but telling our therapist and my wife that I wanted to be dominated was not on my list of resolutions for the year.

Snapping the lid on the last container, I split up the meals into three different bags, ready to deliver them to a few football players. The season had started and this was the busiest time of the year for me. After getting injured two years ago, retiring was the last thing on my mind, but it seemed my body was not what it used to be.

I still had to do physical therapy for my right leg after breaking my tibia and my fibula; getting back into shape was rough. My contract had ended and it wasn’t in my best interest to keep playing, even though I loved the game.

It wasn’t smart to put my health and marriage on the line, especially since we were on the verge of divorce. I’d like to say getting injured was a blessing, but I think it was a rude awakening for both of us. I can still remember Camila's look of despair when she finally made it to the hospital.

I rubbed my chest, still worried that I just put a wrench in our progress even though she had seemed to have been understanding. She even looked up BDSM on a porn website—I’m surprised that didn’t make her run for the hills— so it couldn’t be that bad, right? It felt like I was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Packing the juices I made along with some snacks, I left the condo to head to the stadium. It still stung coming back here, but it kept me close to the game without actually being in the game. I would take anything, and thankfully some of the team kept me busy cooking for them and working with their nutritionist, making eating easier for them. I loved that I got to use my degree in Health and Exercise and it almost made me want to go back for my masters.

Some of my teammates were some of the best men I knew. I had been itching to talk to someone about my situation, but how do you tell people you used to play with that I wanted to be on my knees for my wife and have her tell me I’m a good boy? We were close, but not that close.

“Hey, Malone!”

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