Chapter 7 #3
“Stop doing your dom shit all over my place of business,” Zachary growled, but Romily could hear what sounded like genuine affection and laughter in his voice.
“Seems like you found yourself a prize,” Frederick said.
“I sure have,” Zachary agreed, still in that growly voice. “And I don’t share, so back off.”
Frederick only laughed. “Don’t you?” he asked. “Isn’t that interesting.”
“Did you come all the way to the East Bay to run your mouth or to get a workout in?” Zachary demanded, and they both laughed.
The two of them walked back into the main part of the gym, where there was a rudimentary locker room. Though when Romily snuck a look, Zachary caught her gaze—and those eyes of his gleamed.
Later that night, she sat on the couch Zachary’s living room and looked out over the marina. Sometimes it made her a little dizzy to think about how much her life had changed in so short a span of time—and this time, for the first time, for the better.
She knew all about life changing too fast and in the wrong direction.
Sometimes she liked to pinch herself to make sure she wasn’t dreaming this, but Zachary had caught on to her and there was always a little bit of punishment when that happened.
Sometimes, therefore, she pinched herself on purpose when she knew he could see her because she liked those punishments. Or she liked how they ended, anyway.
Though she suspected that once he caught onto that, he would make them more unpleasant all around. The man took these things seriously. She could trust and believe that he would deliver what he’d promised.
It was amazing what a difference that made. How safe it allowed her to feel.
She watched him move around the kitchen, preparing their dinner.
He did not eat burgers in dive bars every night of the week as she might have been tempted to imagine.
Like everything else, Zachary took food very seriously.
He liked his fuel to be both nutritious and tasty, and did not think much of her attempts in that direction.
Unlike Joseph, he didn’t throw a tantrum when he discovered that Romily didn’t have a skill she’d never claimed to have in the first place.
She thought it was progress that it no longer made her feel uneasy. Just… bemused.
He also didn’t think much of her dietary practices, and had taken it upon himself to make sure that she properly fueled herself for the demands she—and he—put upon her body. It was distressing to discover that he was right. She felt much better, all the time. She had energy to spare.
Plus, what he made was always delicious.
“So that app is actually a club,” she said when they sat down to eat at the table in the corner of his kitchen.
She felt that blue gaze of his move over her, but when she glanced up from the plate he’d put before her, he was looking at his own food.
“And there’s going to be a real club. That people go to and do… these things we do.”
“Do you find that intriguing?” he asked.
When he looked up this time, that blue gaze caught her. But then, all of him caught her. The sharp planes of his face. That dark beard. When he’d only been her fantasy, she’d thought he was too perfect to be real. Now that she knew him intimately, she still thought he was perfect. But also real.
By now, she knew better than to answer questions he asked her without thinking them through.
“I don’t know how it makes me feel,” she said after a moment. “Maybe a little intrigued. Maybe worried.” When his brow lifted, she blew out a breath. “That there will be expectations of me.”
Zachary put down his fork and studied her for a moment across the table. He reached out that big hand of his and she took it at once, then studied the tattoos on his arm. On that perfectly defined forearm.
“The only expectations that will ever be set for you are mine, Romily,” he told her. “And, I hope, your own. What would there be to worry about?”
“I don’t know.”
He didn’t change his expression. He didn’t tense in any way. He simply waited, and she sighed, because she knew already. She knew better, in fact.
One thing that made this relationship so different from anything else she’d ever experienced in her life was that Zachary demanded total honesty. Sometimes it took some work to get to it, but he insisted upon it. And sooner or later, he always got it.
If you lie to yourself, you’re lying to me by default, he had told her once during a particularly intense scene. And then where does that leave us?
I thought this was supposed to be fun, she had thrown at him, furious and not exactly hurt, but coming apart against boundaries she hadn’t even known were in her head.
But he had, of course.
You’ve heard that saying, haven’t you? He had crouched down next to her, where he’d tied her to his footboard. ‘ With great power comes great responsibility.’ Why would that be any different in a power exchange like this? We pay for our pleasure, but I like to think that the price is worth it.
She liked to think that too. Maybe not in the middle of the scene she was confronted by a parade of her own demons, but a girl couldn’t have everything.
Here at the table, he waited. He didn’t take his hand back.
He didn’t punish her. He never did, not in the moment.
He would assess the situation later and mete out punishment as he saw fit.
And it was always very clear to her when he was punishing her because he wanted to turn her on and when he was punishing her because he wanted her to get in touch with her emotions the only way she could.
The thing about Zachary was that he was always, always perfectly clear.
“You talk a lot about training,” Romily said, haltingly. “I guess in my darkest moments I wonder what you’re training me for . You told your friend you don’t share. Is that true?”
“It’s true right now,” Zachary replied, his gaze steady. “If sharing is something that we both think is hot and we negotiate a scene that works within our hard limits, I wouldn’t say no.”
“Do you want to share me?” she asked, she didn’t realize until she said it how much of her heart was in her voice.
But Zachary did. Something changed in that endless blue of his gaze. He switched the way their hands were touching, lacing his fingers with hers.
“I don’t,” he told her. “But I’m kinky as fuck, Romily. And you are too. So I’m never going to say never to anything that comes up. But between you and me? That’s not really on my list.”
“Good,” she said, in more of a rush than she intended. “It’s not on my list either. For either one of us.”
The way he looked at her left her feeling something like shaken. “Noted.”
He went back to eating, but he didn’t let go of her hand. And she supposed that she should have been surprised that he could eat with his left hand as easily as he did with his right. She really should have known already that he was wholly ambidextrous.
She had certainly experienced it.
“Sex clubs are fun,” Zachary told her. “For one thing, it’s always nice to meet people who share common interests.
” He grinned when he said that. “Sometimes a public scene scratches an itch that nothing else can. Maybe some night when Frederick opens his place, we’ll go and play. But there’s no pressure.”
“You’re the expert,” she said. She returned her attention to the dinner he’d made. “Out of curiosity, and really only out of curiosity, how many women have you treated like this before?”
“How many have I trained?” he asked.
She remembered how deliberated he’d been with that word, back at the beginning. “Is that what this is?”
“Very few.” Zachary didn’t look away. “But what I think you’re really asking me is how many women I’ve had an exclusive relationship with for months at a time, to the point where she is already kind of living with me. And the answer is none. Just you.”
And that felt… gigantic. It felt like a sea change. Like those stormy nights on the boat when she couldn’t tell if the boat was still in its slip or if it had floated out to sea and she’d wondered if it would be better if it just sank.
This felt a whole lot like that. But not exactly as dark.
And he was watching her that intensity of his that made everything in her hum . It made her pussy ache. Because there was no intensity between them that wasn’t sexual.
But that wasn’t quite right, she knew. It was that everything about them was connected to their dynamic and their dynamic was inherently sexual.
He had looked at her when they were grocery shopping the week before, done nothing but look at her in a particular way, and she’d practically had an orgasm in the produce aisle.
This was who they were.
Just you, he had said.
But she couldn’t go there. She couldn’t take it on board.
She looked away, and she pulled her hand from his, too. Because she suddenly had a desperate need to cut her meat.
And hours later, when he locked her in chains and played a bit too much with his crop, by her reckoning—until she sobbed from the pain of it and then sobbed because he made her come repeatedly—she didn’t say a word.
That was her penance.
When he tucked up against him, cuffing her the way she liked and adding the blindfold she’d come to depend on, she nestled her head against his heart. Then she waited for him to go to sleep, breathed him in, and whispered I’m sorry, directly into his skin.