Page 63 of Ashes of Sin and Stardust

“And you still have time to get into trouble?”

“Well, see, the average person only uses ten percent of their brain. But the average brat uses about eight-five. I am not an average brat. I amaboveaverage because I have ADHD as well as being crazy. So I get bored easily.”

He stood and cleared our empty plates and topped off my wine. “That was disproven a few years ago.”

“Fine. Whatever. It’s because I have no choice but to stay busy. If I get bored... well. I start ranting about black holes and throwing ice cubes at people. Which apparently is frowned upon.”

His back was turned so I couldn’t see if he was laughing or not, but I doubted it. I’d tried to get him to loosen up over dinner, but he was still so stiff and guarded. At least he wasn’t pacing and panicking anymore.

After dinner, we sat in the living room on opposite ends of the couch, a cushion separating us. I turned slightly and put my back against the arm rest, and he angled himself the same way.

“Alice, I’m still very sorry about yesterday. It was completely inappropriate, and I’m so embarrassed. When you were flirting with those boys, I thought you were initiating with me.”

“Reuben, you have to understand. I’ve had a different experience with BDSM than you have. What you did doesn’t feel like you made a mistake, or like you did anything wrong. I know you’re freaking out about it, but really... It’s fine. I’m still riding that high, by the way.”

“That’s actually more concerning than it is encouraging, because that implies you’ve had some really poorly negotiated dynamics in the past.

“I initially wanted you to come over because I wanted to hear about your past experiences, your other relationships, and so on. If we’re going to do this, we need to do it right. I don’t want to harm you and I don’t want to put either of us in a position where we have such monumental miscommunications again.”

“You really want to know the whole story?” I asked. I’d been dreading this part, but I’d do it if I had to. And I knew it would come up eventually anyway.

“Everything. I want to know everything about you, Alice. Your past, your dreams of the future, your fears, your wants and needs, the things that make you laugh, the things that make you cry.”

“Well, there is a lot of crossovers between those things. I cry a lot.”

“And I want to know every detail on how and why.”

He held his wine glass, one leg crossed over the other, staring at me with such intensity that I believed him. Once again, the weird sneaking sensation that something didn’t add up was poking me in the back of the brain.

I remembered when I first met him. He’d clearly been annoyed by my existence. I wasn’t sure what had changed, and I wasn’t sure how he fit in with Peter Woodrow, and I wasn’t sure why our conversation in the snow had caused such a huge shift in our relationship.

“There’s something I don’t understand,” I said softly. “Why me? Why is it that from the beginning, you didn’t seem to like me, but now all of a sudden, you’re spanking me and cooking me dinner?”

Reuben didn’t answer right away. He stared at me, his eyes shifting from one side of my face to the other, like he didn’t quite believe I was sitting there in front of him.

“Will you do something for me?” His voice was soft, and I could tell this was a request, not a command.

“Maybe.”

“Will you ask me that again another time? Will you wait to make me answer that question? Just until we have some more dialogue under our belts. I promise you, the next time you ask, I will tell you the truth. But I’d like to discuss a few things before I give you that answer.”

“That’s a lot of words for ‘I’ll tell you later.’”

“That’s not what I’m saying,” he insisted. “I’ll tell you now. It would be totally fair of you to require that answer before we say another word. But I’m being selfish and asking if you’ll let me wait.”

With that setup, now I really wanted to know. Why was he making such a big deal out of not answering this question? But I thought about his sorry excuse for an explanation, and decided to run with it.

“Okay... but on the condition that you answerallmy other questions.”

His eyes squinted just slightly. “This feels like a trap.”

I shrugged, and sipped my wine. “It might be.”

He hesitated for a few more moments, and then nodded once. “Deal.”

I grinned. “Okay. First question–”

“Hold on,” he said, and I could tell he was doing that thing I loved where he used his authoritative voice and got all bossy on me. “I asked for your history first.”

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