Page 21 of Collision of Winters
We had no misdistribution of power at work. We were equals. Same couldn’t be said for Kayden and me.
“Is this about you struggling to see me as an adult?” he asked uncertainly.
Damn. I felt bad for him. “No. That may have been the case four years ago, but absolutely not today.”
That was part of the problem. When he was younger, I’d had zero confusion, for obvious reasons. His early twenties had been my struggle.
Moving on.Carefully. “But you realize you changed a bit around me yesterday, yes?” I hedged. “I understand it’s because you’re comfortable, which I adore, but it turns this into a power exchange. And I can’t use my brotherly powers for evil and make you move back home again if you’re in a submissive mind-set, subconsciously trying to please me.”
I’d done my best to keep it light, and I was ready to collect brownie points if necessary. Hell, I had a powerful weapon hidden away in the glovebox of my car.
His favorite soft cheese.
But first, the last piece of honesty. “I’m genuinely worried now that this is pushing you away again,” I admitted. “You haven’t done anything wrong. I’m only concerned about ramifications and hurting you. Does that make sense?”
He nodded once but said nothing, and the avoidance of eye contact was back in full force.
I suppressed a sigh and?—
“I’m gonna say what you said yesterday,” he muttered. “I’ll think about all this, okay? I’ll mull it over.”
A breath gusted out of me, and I couldn’t help but feel relieved. Mulling was better than bolting.
“Take all the time you need,” I assured. “I’m not going anywhere.”
This had to work. He had to understand.
CHAPTER 4
Kayden Winters
We ate in silence as my brain went into overdrive, shoving one random thought into my skull after another. Chris wouldn’t have planted his ass in the doorway if he’d woken up and couldn’t sleep on the couch for whatever reason. He would have just moved his crap into the bedroom and crashed next to Wade. Wade felt that he couldn’t be honest with me, for fear I was going to escape. They’d literally picked Alaska to prevent me from running off.Trust me, Wade, my wanting to serve you was not subconscious. Crap, crap, crap. The bacon was good, at least. I didn’t want to run away. I just hated being seen as the dumb family member. Also, Wade couldn’t expect me to be open and honest in one swoop—and then ask me to tuck away my submissiveness.
That’s a good place to start. Tell him right now before you chicken out.
Weirdly, though, I didn’t believe I’d chicken out. The other day, I would’ve refused or at least hesitated a whole lot to open up, but now I wanted to.
I finished the last of my bacon, and I wiped the grease off on a napkin.
“I want to bring something up,” I said. “Do you remember a few years ago when Dad invited two coworkers for dinner? Emerson and Danny?”
He furrowed his brow. “Yes…?”
Okay, good. Dad had just taken in a teenager temporarily. The guy, Isaac, had been kicked out for being gay, and he’d needed a place to stay for a few weeks before he could move in with his grandfather in Toronto.
“So, they were there because Dad wanted to show Isaac that he could be himself,” I went on. I mean, Dad was bi, but he’d been single at the time, and he’d always been better at showing than telling. “But after dinner, Danny and I got to talking. I was showing him around upstairs, and he spotted my Brat with a Plan sticker—you know the one on my computer?”
Wade grinned faintly. “Horrible sticker. I remember.”
“The best sticker,” I corrected. “Anyway, I kinda admitted to him that I was curious about kink, and he didn’t react weirdly. He just said it was cool and advised me to stay safe. So I opened up a little more and said I was struggling to find good places to explore, and he recommended a blog for me. Like, one of those really old-school WordPress blogs people had ages ago.”
The mirth was gone from Wade’s face. “It wasn’t that fucking long ago.”
Uh, yeah. It was.
“Well, I started reading it,” I said. “A guy runs it with the help of his Daddy, and it’s like a journal. He wrote about how important it was for him to let his inner Little or Middle have a safe space to roam free. Like, before he met his Daddy, he’d create a fort with blankets and stuff and just be a Little on his own. So I started doing that when I moved to Dallas. Every dayafter work, I’d try to take care of myself and watch a movie in jammies with a bunch of blankets.”
One of the worst things about Wade’s dominance was that he got me so quickly, and it showed. His eyes flashed with understanding and sympathy, maybe because he knew things weren’t easy.
