Page 39 of Submissive Lies

“Should have guessed.” He gave a slight shake of his head, expression amused.

“I saw another one.” I took a hasty breath. “The one on your wrist.”

His hand stopped as he raised the drink to his lips. Even though I knew it hadn’t, it was as though all sound in the room had paused, the entire space stilled as if the soundtrack had been muted. My eyes were on his, and I waited for his reaction. We both knew what we’d been dancing around for half a day now, but this was it. Moment of truth time. All cards laid out on the table, no hiding behind innuendo, no more words loaded with assumptions. No more bullshit. Just honesty, and truth, and trust.

His hand continued and he took a sip. His eyes had been assessing before, they became weighted with confirmation now. The glass came down, and when he spoke it was with that voice. The Dom voice. The one he’d used on me in the booth, the one that made bursts of electricity flick over nerves gone sensitive with anticipation.

“You know what that means. Don’t you, Jen.” It wasn’t a question. It was a statement. A firm, no-nonsense tone that said he wasn’t asking for clarification. It was an inflection I knew all too well. I’d heard it often enough from my last Dom. Hearing it now coming from Steve was all it took to send me back to a place I hadn’t been in fifteen months. To react as I would have back then. The tremble that shot through me was anticipation of more, my reaction an oh-so-easy tilting of my head down to gaze at the tabletop.

“Yes.”

“Yes?” His voice was firm, demanding. Sensual.

“Yes, sir.”

I said it softly. I did not raise my eyes until he squeezed my hand almost to the point of pain. That brought my head up, and I saw heat and desire in that stare, an open door to a world I had walked away from. A door I had not stepped through in so long that now beckoned enticingly. He was holding it open for me, watching to see if I would step through. I wanted to, I wanted to so very, very much.

So, I did.

“How long have you been involved?” he asked, voice steady.

“I’ve known for a long time. Actively?” I gave a slight upward hitch of my shoulder. “Only the last eight to ten years.”

“Are you involved with someone right now?”

“No.”

And there it was. I lied. I didn’t even try to stop myself. I hadn’t talked to Thomas yet. He hadn’t returned my call or any of my texts in over eight hours, and that nettled me because it made no goddamn sense. I wouldn’t have needed to lie if he hadn’t suddenly decided to play whatever fucking game he was playing right now and avoid me. Because he was avoiding me. Those two READ messages proved that. So I made my decision and it came out so quick, so easy, because—goddammit—I wanted this! I needed this. I had given up any pretense I didn’t, that I wasn’t going to pursue this. I wasn’t about to let my decision of fifteen months ago dictate otherwise now.

Maybe telling the lie made me a terrible, horrible person. However, I didn’t feel that way right now. Not for a single second.

I was being selfish beyond belief. But at this point I was bound and determined to put an end to the lie I had perpetuated on myself. In ways I had not even realized until right then, I felt a sense of liberation. I had become me again. The Jen I had once been. Not the Jen who’d taken the pain Ben had inflicted and conflated it into an indictment of her sexuality. Who had bottled all of that into a vial filled with poison, and then swallowed it under the pretense I was curing my problem. The reality was I had let it fester into a gangrenous wound that had polluted me. Now I was coming clean. And that feeling was not something I could walk away from. Not now, or ever.

“I’d hoped you’d say that.” Steve’s eyes remained cool on the surface, a sober assessment of me that didn’t falter, but there was heat behind them too. A simmer of building need I understood because I knew it rested behind my own too.

I sat there and melted under Steve’s gaze. It was hunger. Hunger, lust, desire. It was pupils blown wide with yearning. A look of greed that growled to claim possession of me. It was a cocktail of swirling emotions that blew down my nerve endings like a runaway rocket. I wanted that look so much right now. Needed it. I don’t know what he saw in return, but I hoped it was enough. I needed it to be enough. I saw the heat flare, and then he drew in a tight breath. Releasing it slowly, that fire banked, but was still there hidden behind a gaze that now turned imposing, assertive.

“So, your father was a Major?” His mouth pursed, tone sardonic. “Must have been nice, being an Army officer’s brat.”

For a moment, I started to get angry, but then I saw the gleam in his eyes.

Oh, okay. Two can play at that game, mister.

“Oh, yes, it was, it was. You have no idea. I had my own enlisted people to take care of me, do anything I commanded. It was like a fairytale…”

“I’ll bet it was.” His eyes went beady, grin wrinkling his nose until the look was more smirk than snark. I bit down on my lip and gave him my best brat smile.

Hell yes. I was back in the zone.

Our conversation continued, weaving from subject to subject, and the banter between us became easier, natural. Steve asked me about my dad, what bases I had lived on. I asked about the places he’d been deployed. We traded stories about crummy base housing, post exchanges that looked like looted K-Marts, places where the off-base amenities were a single strip mall filled with fast-food restaurants, a smoke shop, and five bars, two of which were of the ‘titty’ kind. The conversation was soon less like that of two people who’d only met a few hours ago, and more one between two old friends. The gentle teasing and repartee Steve engaged in had me laughing more than I had in a while. One thing that did not escape my attention during all of this was that Steve always steered the conversation back to me.

“Oh, God, you have to be talking about the Red Barn.” Steve leaned his forehead into his hand, shaking his head.

“I guess? I was only twelve, and I wasn’t allowed out of the car while my mother went in and peeled him up off the floor.”

Steve laughed, using a hand to stifle most of it. “Had to be the Red Barn. Biggest bar between Fort Eustis and Norfolk. A battleground every weekend between Marines and anybody who got in their way. Including people like your dad.”

“Well, all I know is my mom somehow got him poured into the backseat. I just remember my dad saying over and over, ‘Resa, I think I left a tooth back there. You gotta go get my tooth!’”

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