Page 32 of Saint
The ride isn’t long, and I’m soon at my stop. The little Tesco store is on the corner and the need for some alcohol makes itself apparent. I’ll grab some beers and a pizza, that will do for dinner tonight. As soon as I’m indoors and locked up, I turn the oven on, letting it warm up while I have a shower.
As the hot water streams over my head, I think about what happened and how it went to shit so quickly, what did I do wrong? I think he only decided to give me a try after I showed myself up so spectacularly at the club. Plus, he’d been pressured by Robin to take me seriously. None of it has been because he wants me. He’s blown hot and cold the whole time I’ve known him. At least I know now. We tried, it didn’t work. He doesn’t love me. Not like I love him.
Before I can get the shampoo on my head, there’s banging on my door—it sounds like someone’s trying to take it off its hinges. I dump the shampoo that’s in my hand down onto the bath floor and rinse it off. The hammering hasn’t stopped, and I’m going to get complaints from the neighbours if I don’t get the door open. I pull a towel off the rail and wrap it around my waist. Water is dripping everywhere as I make my way to the door.
“Hold on, for god’s sake. I’m coming.” I yank the door open, and Saint is standing in front of me. A very red-faced, angry looking Saint. “What are you doing here?” I ask, but hebarges past me to stand in the living room. His hands are on his hips as he breathes heavily—as if he’s trying to calm himself.
I close the door quietly, not wanting to add any fuel to his fire. Instead of going to him, I turn back into the bathroom and switch off the shower and dry off. Still ignoring him, I go and get some clothes on, not the soft sweats I planned to crash in tonight. I pull some clean jeans on and a long-sleeved Tee and go back out to face him.
He looks less likely to combust now, the colour on his cheeks has returned to normal, and he’s breathing less heavily. I ask him again. “What are you doing here, Saint?”
“I want to ask you the same thing. You’re supposed to come upstairs when you finish. We talked about this yesterday.” He pinches the bridge of his nose, and his eyes close as he sighs.
“I think you made your feelings for me obvious when you walked away without a word. It seemed like you’d decided I wasn’t worth the trouble and was ending this…whatever it is you want to call it.” I’m not backing down, he made this situation and chose to ignore me. I’m not being gaslighted, he’s not going to turn this on me.
I check the time again. I know Noah will have finished with his last client and have cleaned up by now. So where is he? I’ll give him another five minutes before going downstairs. He must have understood that me ignoring him is part of his training. That he has to do exactly as I say without expecting anything in return. He’s my submissive to do as I wish with.
But he looked confused as I zipped up my jeans again. Fuck! He hasn’t understood.
I take the stairs down to the shop at breakneck speed and come to a halt when I see it’s all dark and locked up. Noah has left and gone to his place. He could still be around though, and I look up the street. There’s a bus at the bus stop, and yep, Noah’s getting on it.
I go back upstairs and grab the keys to my truck, cursing my stupidity. I’m not like this. It’s not like me to fuck up. I’m a skilled Dom. I know what I’m doing, so why has Noah made me make such a stupid mistake? God, my brothers would have my arse if they knew. The first rule when training a new sub is communication: talk, explain, and praise. I didn’t do any of it, because I crave him. I want to be with him skin on skin, to touch him and have him perform all the acts I’ve dreamt of him doing. I’ve made a huge fucking mistake, I’ve failed him.
I pull the truck onto the road and start the crawl through the heavy traffic, it’s always busy at this time of night. Noah will get home before me thanks to the bus lanes and clear roads for the public transport. Damn, I could’ve walked quicker than this. I stare up ahead, trying to see if there’s a reason for the traffic at a virtual standstill. Then we move again, only for me to be stopped by a red light.
Eventually, I make it Noah’s building and even snag a parking spot not too far from it. Then take the stairs two at a time, rushing to get to his door. I bang on the door, much harder than I know I should, but I’m seriously wound up now. But he doesn’t answer, there’s no reply at all. Has he gone somewhere else? Where would he go? I knock again for too long and too loud.
It opens, and Noah has a towel wrapped around his waist and there’s water dripping from his wet hair down his tattooed chest. Fuck, he looks hot. He’s angry, wanting to know why I’m here. Ignoring him, I stomp past and into his living room. Rather than follow me, Noah disappears back into his bathroom, then to his bedroom. He’s dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved top, the tight shirt moulds to his muscular chest, and his jeans fit over his arse snugly. I want to grab him and kiss the ever-loving fuck out of him. Sensing the tension rolling off him, I hold back.
“What are you doing here, Saint?” There’s weariness in his voice I don’t like, and he’s hardly making eye contact with me.
“I want to ask you the same thing. You’re supposed to come upstairs when you finish. We talked about this yesterday.” I pinch the bridge of my nose, trying to control my frustration.
“I think you made your feelings for me obvious when you walked away without a word. It seemed like you’d decided Iwasn’t worth the trouble and was ending this…whatever it is you want to call it.”
Where do I start to apologise. I’m not good at this stuff, explaining things. Royal is the words guy; I’m the point and grunt guy. The show rather than tell guy. This has to make sense and still hold an apology, it can’t just be an explanation. He was there and knows what happened.
“I fucked up, Noah. I made a fundamental error, a rookie mistake, by not explaining what was going to happen and just expecting you to understand. You’re so up in my head. You’re all I think about, and that’s new to me. I’ve never had a relationship—a boyfriend, I’ve only ever had hook-ups or played in the clubs. I haven’t trained a boy for a very long time. I pick boys that know what’s expected from them and what they want to get out of the scene. They know the rules, the nuances, all aspects of play.”
“Guys like Tate, you mean,” Noah spits out at me, so angry that I’ve just described the boy that has teased and taunted Noah and has had my attention lately.
“Yes, boys like him.” I can’t take back all I’ve done in the past, so I carry on. “Being ignored is part of a scene, to humiliate the sub, to prove that they are just another mouth to use and discard. I shouldn’t have done that to you, not this early and not at work. I didn’t even mean to do it, but the minute your incredible mouth is around my cock, I forget everything and just let go. I got carried away. I’m sorry. I never intended to hurt you.”
His lips are in a thin line as he listens, then his eyes narrow. “That’s not true. You walked away, that was intentional. You forgot whose mouth you were fucking.” He pushes his hands through his damp hair. “How am I supposed to learn if you don’t discuss it with me? You had ample opportunity through theafternoon to explain it to me. We could’ve talked through how I would feel afterwards, why you did it, and what else I can expect from you. How am I supposed to trust you, my Dom, if you don’t talk to me?”
He turns his back on me and paces to the kitchen and grabs a beer out of the fridge then closes it, making it very obvious I’m not included. After downing almost half of it, he wipes the back of his hand over his mouth. “I don’t think we can do this. Not the way you think.”
Okay, this is not what I expected him to say. Is he ending it? Fuck, I don’t want to stop, I want him. “What do you mean? Are you ending this?”
He shakes his head, and a rush of relief flows through me. “No, no. I still want this. I still want you. I want a boyfriend, a lover, and a Dom. I think we need to learn how to be boyfriends outside of any dominance, but the training takes place at the club. We can take a room, and you can teach me anything you want, because in that environment I know everything you do will be a lesson. Then at the end, we can talk through what happened and how it made us feel.”
God, that idea is brilliant. Why didn’t I think of it? I can already see him naked in a room, his sweat-soaked skin flushed from the fronds of my flogger. Can I be a boyfriend? I’ve never done that, been that. I don’t know how to distinguish between being a Dom and lover. Although I can imagine having Noah spread naked on my bed, his eyes focused only on me as I slide inside him for the first time. I swallow the lump in my throat and nod. “Yeah, I like that idea. I’m pissed off I didn’t think of it, but I think it’s doable.”
“Doable?” He smirks. “Is that the best you can come up with? It’s not a tattoo idea, Saint. It’s me and you beingtogether and getting to know each other. As we do, we can start introducing more of the fun stuff to the everyday stuff. I’m not averse to being tied to bed, y’know, just FYI.”
“This is new to me too. I’ve never been into dating.” I have no idea where to go from here. All I know and feel is that Noah is worth it. “What do we do now?”
“I think you kiss me.” His coy smile has my dick twitching again.
