Page 85 of Untether

I slide my hand up her back and give her shoulder a little squeeze. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be. I think I mentioned that first time we went out that our marriage was super strong when it came to our intellectual relationship.’ Another pause. I sense her usual eloquence has deserted her. ‘But John made it clear early on that he liked being dominated. He wanted—well, he wanted all sorts of things that left me cold.

‘We tried stuff once or twice—stuff I didn’t love, that did nothing for me—and then we both kind of gave up and stuck to the basics, you know? I feel so stupid saying that.’

I frown. ‘Why on earth do you feel stupid? None of that was your fault—of course you shouldn’t have done things you weren’t comfortable with.’

‘I guess because you’re the poster boy for sexual liberation, and making peace with your needs, and going after what you want. But when you’re in a monogamous relationship with a human being you love, and your wilder sides aren’t compatible, what choice do you have but to meet in the middle, for want of a better term?’

‘Can I ask what kind of stuff he was into?’ I ask, and she notably tenses under my hand.

‘I mean, nothing crazy, just—dominatrix stuff, I guess. He wanted me to tie him up and whip him and, you know, prod him with my stiletto heels. I tried a couple times at a more basic level, but honestly, I hated it. I hated seeing him lying there, all trussed up.’

She takes a deep breath, like she’s getting ready to share a fresh confidence. ‘I wanted it to be me. I wanted him to tie me to the fucking bed and flip me over and just fuckingfuckmy brains out, but I never even asked him for that, because it was so obvious he wanted the same from me. He would never have done a one-eighty. And I know he felt rejected, too, because I basically rejected his kinks and shied away from giving him what he needed.’ A heavy sigh. ‘I let him down.’

Nope. No. Not having that. ‘Hang on a sec. That’s absolute bullshit. You didn’t let him down. You two just weren’t sexually compatible. That’s the beginning and the end of it. The depressing thing is, I suppose meeting in the middle was all you could do, really, aside from walking away or having you both play roles you weren’t comfortable with.’

She blows out a breath. ‘Yeah. I guess.’

‘You don’t guess, you know,’ I say, more firmly than I mean to. ‘Those other women he shagged—did they dominate him?’

‘Fuck knows. I’m guessing so, or maybe they were just new and young and shiny and adoring enough that he got his kicks from them anyway.’

The way her voice cracks on the wordyounghas me tugging her into my arms so fucking tightly. ‘Sweetheart,’ I say into her hair. ‘You are so fucking beautiful. So sexy. And the way you are with me—the way you let me cuff you andorder you around and fuck you hard—is so utterly, unspeakably perfect I can’t bear it.’

I clarify, because I need to make sure she understands this. ‘Everything about the way we are together is flawless. You give me everything I crave, but I just want more, more, more, because I’m a selfish bastard and I can’t get enough of you. I’m addicted to you, you understand?’

She nods into my chest and I hear a muffledyes.

‘Are you saying,’ I continue carefully, because I don’t want to put words into her mouth, ‘that the way we fuck is what you’ve been needing all this time?’

She pulls away a little so she can raise her face from under my chin and face me. And when she speaks, there’s no hesitation. None at all.

‘The way you fuck me, and the way you make me feel when you’re doing those things to me, is so right and so elemental that it feels like every planet out there has aligned. It scares the ever-living crap out of me, because it makes me not want to come back down to earth.’

55

AIDA

Waking up with a warm, sleepy Cal next to me is pretty special. I surface on my stomach, face turned into the crook of one arm. One of his huge hands is stroking my ass slowly, which I’m pretty sure is what woke me up. And when I let my eyes flutter open, it’s his face I see in the soft morning light.

‘Hey,’ I murmur, those first cloudy seconds of bliss yielding to an almost instant flare of panic, because I haven’t woken up with a guy who is not my ex or one of my sons for a very, very long time. And I’m pretty sure my just-woke-up look isn’t as cute as the ones I used to pull off.

His smile, though. His smile tells me all is well. It tells me he’s pretty happy to have me in this huge, orgy-sized bed of his.

‘How’d you sleep?’ he whispers, his hand trailing from my ass and up my back. His touch feels so good. Casual, but sure.

‘I slept great,’ I tell him, curling onto my side, and it’s true. I totally wiped out.

‘Good,’ he says. He pulls me into him, and I tuck my faceunder his chin. His morning wood settles against my stomach, his hairy leg wrapping around mine. And so we remain as he falls easily back to sleep.

I guess I must drift off, too, because the next thing I know, Cal’s disentangling himself from me and getting out of bed, and I groan feebly at the loss.

‘Hey,’ he says softly. ‘Stay there. I’m getting you some coffee.’

The C-word has my eyes flying open, and he laughs. ‘Yeah, baby. Give me five and I’ll get you caffeinated.’

He’s gone a lot longer than five minutes. I use his palatial slate-grey wet room to brush my teeth, wash my face and steal his robe, and I’m inhaling theWashington Poston my phone—an ancient, engrained habit—when he reenters the room.

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