Page 41 of Leather and Longing
Adam thought that was hardly likely to have brought about such a change. His lips twitched, curling into a smile. He licked his lips. “Did you find my box files?” he said, keeping his tone level.
“Yes, found those.” Paul’s voice was quiet.
“And was there a box with all my DVD’s?”
“Yes, those too. And your DVD player.”
“And what about the box with my leather wrist restraints?” There was a good deal more than those to be found, but he wanted to hear Paul’s response.
What he got was silence.
He smiled. “Just testing,” he said under his voice. He couldn’t imagine all his BDSM gear fitting into one single box. He’d amassed a great many items over the years.
Despite his qualms of the previous day, in that moment he yearned to run his hands over the leather, to smell it, rub a collar between his fingertips and bring them to his nose to inhale its odour, breathe it in once more.
“Bring that box, and any others like it, into the library,” he instructed Paul.
There was a moment’s delay before Paul responded. “Yes, sir.”
Adam walked into the library to wait, seating himself in the armchair by the window. Paul entered the room a few minutes later.
“How many such boxes did you find?”
“Three. Where do you want them?”
Adam tried to visualize the library. It was the room with which he was most familiar. “Put them behind the couch.” They’d be out of the way, but there was enough room for Adam to investigate them without bumping into anything. “And then put the box with the laptop and recorders on the desk in the office. That’s where you’ll be working, once you make a start.”
Paul left the room, doubtless to collect a box.
Adam had expected to feel more upbeat at the thought of Paul working on a book for him, but the elation wasn’t there. Instead, all he could think about was the content of those boxes. Paul’s reaction to them demanded further investigation, but what claimed his attention was the thought of his whole life in the BDSM community, contained in them.
Three boxes that did nothing but remind him of what he’d lost.
The pain of it cut through him, making it difficult to breathe. His stomach was in knots and there was a dullness in his chest, a feeling of heaviness spreading throughout his whole body. Whatever resolution he’d come to the day before had fled, leaving despondency in its wake.
He waited until Paul had brought the final box. “Go away and close the door after you. I don’t want to hear from you until lunchtime.” Not that he felt like eating. His present mood had robbed him of his appetite.
All he wanted was to be left alone.
When Paul exited the room without a word, closing the door behind him, Adam stood and walked over to the couch. His foot nudged a box, but he didn’t bend over to open it. He didn’t need to. Adam could smell the leather, the scent evoking so many memories. In his mind he gripped the handle of a flogger, heard the hitch in his submissive’s breathing that spoke of anticipation and desire, saw the unmarked skin, waiting for him…
What was I thinking? I knew it would fucking hurt to have all this around me. I’d have been better off if it had stayed where Caroline had stowed it, in the darkest recesses of the attic.
Adam stepped away and sought the comfort of his chair. He curled his legs up under him, removed his glasses and slung them onto the floor, and turned his face toward the wing of the chair. He closed his eyes as if that would shut out the world, and wished he could shut out the sound of the sea. It was something he associated with his childhood, of warm summer nights when he’d lain in his bed, listening to the waves lapping the shore. Fast forward, and it was the sound of waves hitting the hull of a boat as he powered through them, steering expertly, everything under his control.
Control….
Adam filled his lungs with air and expelled it in a scream, howling it out.
“I fuckinghatethis!” His body shook and he hugged his knees, trembling in the wake of his rage, directed at no one, just hurled out there into the ether.
Paul had never liked Mondays, but this one took the biscuit. After today, he fuckinghatedMondays.
Adam had been in a foul mood since he’d gotten up that morning. It had begun with him roaring when he couldn’t find his glasses, not that he really needed them in the house. When Paul had located them on the floor, he’d handed them to Adam, who’d snatched them from him. That had set the tone for the day. Adam had sniped and growled, picked holes in everything Paul did, until Paul had gotten to within a second or two of telling him to stick his job.
Except he hadn’t, of course. He’d retreated into the dining room and got on with his task of going through the boxes. He tried to ignore Adam who followed him, asking constant questions while Paul had searched for the elusive box that contained his writing materials: laptop, notebooks, and most importantly, the digital recorders onto which he’d saved his next book.
Boxes…
