Season of Gifts (Neighborly Affection #8)

76. Alice

Chapter seventy-six

Alice

A lice was gonna need a wheelbarrow to roll herself off the music room couch. Henry’s family did the formal Christmas meal in the afternoon, and after stuffing themselves silly, it was getting on toward naptime. Mother, tipping toward snoozing, had stopped guiding Alice through photos of Henry’s school days and gracefully allowed Henry to help her to her bedroom. Jay had taken the boys and their inexhaustible energy back outside. Henry’s brother and his wife had disappeared upstairs while holding hands, supposedly to nap.

“Nap, uh-huh.” Alice paged through a photo album on the coffee table.

Henry in class, wearing a uniform with a collared shirt and tie. Henry accepting awards. Henry in an art studio, his gaze focused on the easel in front of him, the tilt of his head familiar even on his slender teenage form. His chest and shoulders only filled out later in the album, about the time he flirted with facial hair.

“Disastrous,” he murmured behind her. His hand settled on her shoulder. “Junior year. Will and I goaded each other into trying to grow beards.”

Henry circled the couch and claimed the seat beside her, his thigh tight against hers.

They’d been nearly this close last night, rocking Jay between them in the moonlight. She rested her hand above his knee. “Well, I know how Santa’s turned out. What happened to yours?”

“Ah, yes, the girls swooned for his hirsute look. Manly, they said. Rugged.” He laid his hand atop hers, his nails neatly manicured, his palm soft despite his strength. “Mine surrendered to the razor after two months of waiting for patches to fill in.”

“Is there evidence of that?” Laughing, she flipped the pages forward, but the scraggly beard made no more appearances.

“Burned,” he teased, rubbing his clean-shaven cheek against her. “The evidence of such youthful follies has been excised from existence long since.”

The album fell flat on a page with a single large photo, one of the few with a casual Henry. His school tie hung loose; he’d unbuttoned the top of his shirt and left the collar open. Legs stretched out before him, feet bare, he lay propped on his elbows on a picnic blanket with Will and a girl beside him. Will dangled a whole mess of grapes above the girl’s head; she shot him a fondly exasperated glare.

“Is that his wife? Did they meet at school?” The three of them looked comfortable together, enjoying a sun-dappled afternoon with a hint of autumn in the leafy trees.

“He would’ve been much better off if she were.” Henry drew his finger along the edge of the page, slow and deliberate. “No, he didn’t court Vivian until college. That’s Gretchen Spencer. Merriam, now; she wed some years ago.”

“You seem cozy.” A tingle traveled along her spine, more curiosity than jealousy. Holding on to secrets from the past had nearly ruined their Christmas. The photo conveyed an intimacy unglimpsed in the rest of Henry’s school days. “You and her and Will.”

“We were inseparable our senior year.” His rumbling amusement sounded like her Henry once more, no longer a hair away from losing his shit but fully in control, gently teasing her because he could.

“Ask,” she whispered, forcing her voice as deep as it would go, trying to mimic his intonation.

He hummed his pleasure as he kissed her temple, her cheek, the ticklish spot on her earlobe. “I’m becoming predictable, am I?”

Twisting, she kissed him lightly on the lips. “Predictable isn’t a bad thing after the rattling we had.”

“No, it is not.” His mouth hovered at hers, the two of them sharing the same air. “Ask your question, my love.”

“I don’t have to ask.” She nuzzled his lips, brushing the corners, stringing moments of closeness like links on the chain of the necklace he’d given her this morning. The metal dangled between her breasts, a hidden touch beneath her shirt. “She was your first. The girl on the class trip.”

A hotel balcony in Paris, he’d told her and Jay. So much more romantic than her own first time.

“She was.”

She kissed him for the honesty. Henry didn’t have a list of actions he earned rewards for, but maybe he should. Openness and emotional vulnerability—that could go on a list for both of them.

“You were dating?” Anyone gazing at the picture would’ve assumed the girl to be with Will—though her bare feet rested against Henry’s calf. “Senior year?”

“After a fashion.” Henry pulled back and cupped her chin. Dragging his thumb across her mouth, he smiled as she caught and held him in her teeth. “Like you, she was adventurous. She held strong opinions about the entertainment she desired, and in myself and Will she found like-minded partners.”

Heat fluttered in her belly. Last night they’d put Jay in the middle—he’d needed and deserved every iota of their combined attention. But once they went home, she’d ask for her turn. She released Henry’s thumb. “I should thank her for giving you up.”

“She was a lovely creature, and we enjoyed our time together. However.” He tightened his fingers around her chin and laid his other hand at her throat.

The weight of his hand poured waves of peace through her. The tide rushed out to her toes and filled her with assurances she hadn’t consciously been seeking but reveled in all the same. She was his; he was hers.

He fingered the chain he’d clasped around her this morning. “I would not trade even a moment of where I am now for another day with her. The memories are sweeter with distance, and my present life with you and Jay is a gift indeed. My feelings for you run far deeper, for all that these last few weeks may have given you a less favorable impression.”

“You’re you again.” Her body thrummed with the rebalanced equation of the promises they’d made to one another.

He released her, dropping his hands to his knees and leaving the ghost of his touch behind. Flashes of color came and went outside the front window, Jay and the boys darting through the snow. Henry ignored the album. But there he was, seventeen, and already so confident.

The girl had full lips and a smattering of freckles. Her uniform skirt flirted with her thighs; her white blouse hugged her throat. Plenty of grown women wore similar outfits at the club. Alice laced her fingers through his. “Was she your first submissive?”

Pulling his gaze from the window, he raised an eyebrow at her. “Not formally, no.” He puffed air through his nose, a nearly silent laugh. “None of us knew what we were doing at the time.”

Somehow he’d cut a path from there to here. To the place where he knew her and Jay better than they knew themselves. He’d gone missing for a few days and still found his way back to that quiet command and confidence. If he could transform, so could she. “But you played together?”

Henry shifted toward her, his knee pressing into hers as he studied her face. His deep green eyes peered into her soul, an interrogation that set her heart racing.

“This persistence of yours doesn’t carry the flavor of jealousy.” He glanced at the photo and back at her, lightly shaking his head. “Will you share with me what you’re feeling, dearest? I’m afraid I am not a mind reader at any time, and even less so of late.”

“But you are. It feels like you are. And I’m…” Always guessing, never certain. People didn’t resolve themselves for her the way equations did. “I don’t feel that way, even when Jay tells me he loved what I did. I’m asking—” The words stuck in her throat, a confession of failure in a month with too many of them. “How long did it take you to be confident? Like…” Those fleeting moments when she was soaring, held aloft by Jay’s pure delight. “Like you’d finished training. Gotten the PhD.”

Henry’s eyes flared wider, and his lips curved in a smile. He brushed his thumb across hers. “This is the fear that was bedeviling you so in the days before I left. You weren’t yet ready to discuss it with me.”

“Yes.” In the weeks since, she’d dominated Jay by herself more than once. Even planned a little in advance, more than she needed to for his usual room checks. But the fear kept returning. “It’s different now, but it’s still there. That fear.”

“I am not surprised. You had questions and doubts.” He slipped his fingers through her hair, tickling her neckline as he pushed back the soft waves. “And I stranded you in the deep end by leaving. I should like to say it was an entirely noble choice, that I had faith in you that you do not yet have in yourself.” His eyes briefly shut as he grimaced. So much emotion in his expression was rare; she’d been granted a glimpse behind the dominant mask. “I do; you’ve done splendidly, Alice. But truthfully, my fear for Mother was so all-consuming that I failed to give thought to how you would cope. I simply trusted that you would.”

And she’d trusted that he would. But he’d been drowning just as much as Jay had, and she’d been missing the clues to put the puzzle together. Trusting Henry to know what he needed and speak up, she’d focused on Jay, at least until work had dragged her away. “They say necessity is the mother of invention. So I invented things. But sometimes I feel like an imposter.”

“During your scenes?” His voice was light, airy, but his eyes sharpened.

“Not during.” Then, she could focus. “Before, when I’m planning and I don’t know how it will go. After, when I don’t know what I might have gotten wrong or forgotten.”

His soothing hum vibrated against her nerves. “And during? How do you feel then?”

“Aroused?” She laughed at the stern, unimpressed deadpan he shot her. That was a given. And not what he was asking.

Closing her eyes, she settled into herself and tried to retrace her steps. Friday, when she’d taken Jay into the shower. The week before, when she’d written her claims on his skin. “Calm. Excited. Like my mind is breaking the sound barrier but still in control, hurtling us on the trajectory I’ve picked and hoping my calculations were right.”

She’d have to tell Jay when they opened his physics kit and started setting up the experiment. See how we choose the slope, and that affects the speed and direction? That’s me domming you, stud. All the planning and the hypotheses, and then— she’d drop the barrier holding the steel ball at the top of the chute— we let go. “I’m not thinking about being an imposter then. I’m just doing.”

Wisdom Jay had given her more than once. He lived best in the moment, when he wasn’t tangled in anxiety and doubt. When he was subbing, he let go. But domming, that was about holding tight. Taking control of every variable. Wasn’t it?

“You are far from an imposter, sweet girl.” Henry swept his arms around her and cradled her to his chest. He smelled of himself, musky male beneath leather and citrus, and her cheek rested against his soft sweater. “It seems to me your confidence is precisely where it ought to be. Skills mastery will bring you confidence, but not, I think, in the way you believe.”

He stroked her back in lazy, unhurried passes. If she rested here forever, he would never tire. No—he gave the impression that he would never tire. But he was a man, not an omniscient god, no matter how much her subby self kept casting him in that role. “Faulty hypothesis?”

“Amended, let’s say.” He pressed his lips against the top of her head; the heat of his breath warmed her. “You have the knowledge of your skills and the tools available to you. That is something that training, time, and repetition brings. When I swing a flogger for you or Jay, I am confident in my ability to control it.”

He should be; he need only say the word flogger and the two of them would be at his feet.

“I would not be so confident executing a rope suspension, as my knowledge and skills are not nearly so extensive as Will’s. Your confidence will grow so far as your appetite for knowledge and practice takes you.”

That was fair. But training took time, and she needed the confidence now. Wanted the confidence now. “I want to know everything.”

“Of course you do.” He chuckled, and she joined him. On some measures, she wasn’t too hard to read, even to herself. “But mastery is not limited to skills knowledge.”

Other dimensions she hadn’t considered were holding her back? But she could escape the horrible prickling doubt of uncertainty. She could have Henry’s confidence. His control, his precision, his timing. “Give me a direction?”

“You also have the knowledge of your partner. Familiarity will help you read signals that were once opaque. Experience will enhance your confidence with each subsequent scene.” He spoke directly beside her ear, his rumbling baritone shutting out the rest of the world. “The more often you guide Jay, the more your sense of leadership and his trust in you will grow. But a bad day, mood swings, illness, injury—any number of disruptors, truthfully—may feel like a setback, prompting a loss of confidence.”

Well that wasn’t reassuring. She couldn’t promise to be perfect, to reach the endpoint where she’d never make a mistake or misunderstand or—

She wriggled loose and wrapped her arms around Henry, offering him the comfort he’d been giving her. “I’m sorry.”

“Alice?” He accepted her embrace, but his voice fluttered with curiosity.

“Getting things right every single time is a massive amount of pressure.” Here she was, talking endlessly about her feelings of inadequacy while her husband wrestled silently with his own. He hadn’t foreseen every blip in the plan since coming up to Maine. He felt wretched about the hurt Jay had been through and the role she hadn’t felt ready for. His confidence must have slipped. His tenderness last night wasn’t just to meet Jay’s needs. It hadn’t been only the moonlight or the reverence for the holiday. Henry had needed soothing. A simple, undemanding way to reconnect. Maybe to find his confidence again. “Is that why you looked uncomfortable when I said you were you again? Because it feels like pressure?”

“I am…” He settled his shoulders, tension sliding away beneath her restless hands. “Cognizant of the weight of expectations—yours and Jay’s, yes, but also my own. In recent weeks, I have made a less than spectacular showing as a dominant for you both. I hoarded my fears; I was inconstant in my communication; I did not convey the strain I was feeling.” His sigh held a gruff edge. “All of those things precipitated the very hurts I meant to avert. I would not fault you for losing confidence in me. I had hoped to be a better husband than I’ve been thus far.”

His quiet confession stopped her breath. Swallowing slowly, holding him close, she lined up the words before she let them out. “It’s a good thing we have a whole lifetime to practice being better spouses to each other, huh?” She laid a gentle kiss on his cheek. “Except Jay, of course. He’s already perfect.”

Henry twitched against her as he snorted his amusement. “Your skills warrant more confidence than you feel. Dominants can experience a post-play drop as easily as submissives. Yours may have been particularly impactful because you weren’t expecting it and we have yet to discuss an aftercare routine for your dominant side. But we shall endeavor to address that before the need arises again.”

“I get it now,” she whispered, alive with the intimacy of sharing ideas, of making breakthroughs together. “There is no graduation. Dominance is lifelong continuing education, and confidence is a moving target from one day to the next.”

“A moving target, hmm?” Henry scooped her sideways into his lap and rested his back against the little couch. “You may be confident you have found the answer you’ve been seeking.”

She palmed his cheek, dipping her fingers into the short edges of his hair. “And you may be confident that I’m going to rack up those continuing education credits with you and Jay for the rest of my life.”

Their kiss might’ve gone on longer if not for the clomping of boots in the hall.

“Bathroom breaks first”—Jay’s voice rose above excited chatter—“and wash your hands, and then cookies to fuel us up. That snow fort won’t build itself.”

She sat with her hands on Henry’s shoulders but their lips modestly apart as their husband rounded the corner and leaned against the doorframe. The chill had reddened his cheeks, and his hair flopped every which way when he lifted his snowy cap. Sporting a cocky grin, he waggled his eyebrows. “Canoodling again? Am I interrupting?”

“Never.”

Henry waved Jay forward as she echoed his declaration. They clasped Jay’s icy hands and tugged him in for kisses.

“Are you warm enough?” She chafed his hand. Between the morning and afternoon, he’d been out in the snow for hours. “It’ll be dark soon.”

He curled his fingers into hers. “I’m plenty warm after those kisses.”

“Would you care for assistance encouraging the boys to come in for the evening?”

Jay glanced toward the hallway, but the boys hadn’t reappeared yet. “Those are the most well-behaved nephews I’ve ever had. I bet I don’t even have to check on the handwashing. I can keep them busy awhile longer if you two want to go upstairs. Their folks finish napping yet?”

His sly intonation broke loose her laughter. “I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks more than a nap is happening.”

“Hey, parenting is all about the stolen moments, so far as I can tell.” Jay swayed, his hands held tight in theirs, his legs brushing theirs as he stood before them. “The crucial thing is to have plenty of aunts and uncles on standby.”

They had more than she would have guessed. Ollie was too far away, but Nat sometimes, maybe. Emma and Will, almost certainly. Leah, and Claudia and Charlie, and the other guys Jay played basketball with now. They’d have plenty of help, if they remembered to ask for it. A good lesson for the next crisis.

“—change into appropriate attire and meet you outside.”

“Huh?” She’d missed something in her mental meandering.

“Uncle Jay, how many cookies may we take?” Gabe peeked his sweetly rounded face in from the doorway. “Eddie says not to ruin dinner, but my stomach sounds very hungry.”

That had to be little-boy metabolism. After the goose and the side dishes and the specialties Henry had added for them—steak and baked potatoes from her traditions and oyster stuffing from Jay’s—her stomach wouldn’t hold another bite.

“See what I mean?” Jay whispered. “So polite.” He stepped back and winked at them. “Gotta go do my favorite kind of math. Okay, Gabe”—he raised his voice as he dashed off—“the first important question is how many cookies do we have .”

Being around family—building family—was the best medicine for Jay. “Your brother’s not gonna recognize his kids when he gets them back.”

“It will do them all good. As is always the case when Jay is involved.” Henry slid her to the seat and stood, offering her a hand up. “I do hope I haven’t overcommitted us. I may have miscalculated your desires for the remainder of the afternoon.”

He’d told Jay something about going outside, which meant they weren’t going upstairs to “nap.” But she could wait for that sort of attention. “No, I don’t mind. Am I sitting with Mother while you even up the snowball fight teams?”

“Actually”—Henry kissed her knuckles as he raised her to her feet—“I thought I would ask Robert to spend time with Mother while you and I go play in the snow with our husband.”

That was an invitation she couldn’t refuse. Jay had already won the adoration of two new nephews. If she and Henry joined them in snowy shenanigans, their family would grow that much closer. “I’ll get our coats. You can go knock on your brother’s door.”

“Ah, I see you’ve found your confidence.”

Laughing, she pushed him toward the stairs.