Chapter 35 #3
Obviously, I wasn’t going to say anything about what Carlos said. It was hard enough to keep myself from thinking about it too hard. The idea of it had me choking on air, fighting back tears that I wouldn’t be able to explain.
“If you’re good, we’re going to head off,” Danny said. I glanced back. He finished his glass of water in one large swig and dried his mouth with his forearm. “Unless you want to head back to the club?”
“No, it’s good. Thanks, Danny.”
It was easy to promise him that I’d text him if I needed anything. Even easier to ignore the look Santos and Carlos exchanged before giving each other one of those nods that I never understood men gave one another.
“What about your workshop?”
I shrugged. “I suppose I’ll text Erika tomorrow and we can reschedule it.”
It wasn’t as if the club’s activities were a formal, contractual thing.
Erika might not like it because she was all about discipline and following the rules, but she’d understand.
Or maybe I’d run out of luck with her, too, and she wouldn’t, but I’d deal with that when the time came.
Right now, my focus was on Santos and how he was touching me, but the touch didn’t carry the warmth I was used to. The strength.
It was wrong.
Maybe I could’ve asked Danny to stay, but… No. It was bad enough that I knew I was a coward. I couldn’t deal with someone else knowing it, too. Whatever they had to be thinking about me would have to be bad enough.
“Babes, I…” He ran a hand through his hair. It was longer now, but I knew he wanted it much longer, that his curls weren’t anywhere near as defined as he wanted them. “Will you come to therapy with me?”
“W-what?”
That was not what I’d expected.
“It’s on Tuesday, and I don’t know, maybe she’s not okay with it, but I read that sometimes they let you do that.”
“Like couples’ therapy?”
Santos winced as if I’d slapped him. It was sort of how I was feeling, the shock forcing me still. Quieting my thoughts in a way that bordered on disturbing.
“No, no… Well, I don’t think so? But sometimes you can take someone to therapy when you need to explain something, and you need help doing it or extra support? I think. That’s what Reddit says.”
“Since when are you on Reddit?”
Santos shrugged. “It has good porn gifs.”
“Uh-huh.”
Good porn gifs.
Right.
I wasn’t going to touch that with a ten-foot pole.
It wasn’t about the porn gifs—I was aware of them. I just needed to keep cool, and I couldn’t keep cool if the conversation turned into talking about porn.
Had that been the issue all along? I’d been so focused on all things kink. Maybe I hadn’t allowed space for him, for us, for everything that was going on beneath the lust and the chemistry and the labels and rules and rigidity that I’d grown used to.
“I’ll go to therapy with you,” I swallowed.
It was hard to remember he’d asked a question, but I would hate everything even more if he thought I wasn’t listening to him.
If he thought I didn’t see him just because focusing could be hard at times, and there were too many thoughts scrambling around my head at any given time. “I’ll do anything, okay? I swear.”
Santos sighed. “I don’t want you to do anything. I just want to…understand, I guess.”
“Understand what?”
He just shook his head. “Did you want to go to bed? That had been my plan before I heard you walk in.”
“Okay,” I whispered.
I could spot a rejection when I saw one.
I could also go through the notions of losing the sweatpants and hoodie, and ignore the attire I had underneath.
The corset and the rubber skirt and the fishnets.
It probably bordered on gaudy, but I’d felt so many of the good tingles when I’d tried it on home.
When Santos said I looked hot, and he pressed me against his chest, and I felt his hard on against my ass.
I’d gathered all my courage to wear it, to expose myself more than anyone at the club had seen, and they had seen a lot.
“Come here, Ever.”
“Uh, why?”
I was struggling to take off the corset, but that was normal. It had nothing to do with this, or a case of trembling fingers. It was just the fact that my arms weren’t the most flexible part of my body, and reaching my back where the laces were was hard.
“Let me do this for you,” he said. He didn’t give me an option to object, either, moving closer and starting to undo the lacing of the corset with the same care he’d shown when he’d helped me tie it up earlier in the afternoon. “Will you wear the same thing when you reschedule?”
“I don’t know.” That would mean I felt just as confident as I had felt earlier, and I didn’t think that was going to happen when everything felt so wrong between us. “Do you…want me to?”
Santos rested his chin against my shoulder. He had to be bending weird to manage, but I didn’t care. I cared even less when he shifted to kiss my shoulder.
“Yeah.”
“Uh, w-why?”
Instead of answering right away, he made a soft sound. A hint of a laugh. I didn’t understand. It was all giving me whiplash.
“Because you’re hot?” Santos teased. “Because I like the idea of others seeing what a good, slutty girl you are.”
“Okay, stop.” I breathed heavy, aware of each heartbeat. “What’s going on right now?”
Stop wasn’t a safeword, but Santos acted as if it was, taking a step back and his hands off me. His mouth off me.
I allowed myself to mourn the loss for all of two seconds before I faced him.
Before I forced myself to think clearly, to convince myself that maybe the whiplash was, mostly, my own doing, but I had a right to bring it up.
To address the way it stung and left me feeling like I’d been sucker punched, not knowing which way was up.
“I…” With his eyes widened, he looked almost as out of sorts as I had to.
Only I hadn’t been the one initiating anything.
I’d been the one pretending that I wasn’t hurt, and that it was fine if my best friend rejected me because of whatever was going on.
Whatever he wasn’t telling me. Whatever I was doing or not doing that was creating a drift between the two of us.
“I’m sorry. I…I didn’t think you’d be back. ”
I frowned. “But I am.”
“Yeah.” Santos glanced around. Focusing more on him, he was trembling. It wasn’t like when I did it because I was too overwhelmed and scared, but there was a faint tremor to his body. “And you…didn’t come back because you wanted to…”
Fuck.
It was both how he wanted to end that sentence, and the one word I could think of saying.
“No.”
Santos nodded. I stood still. It would probably be bad if I made any brusque movement.
“And you don’t… And it’s fine if we don’t…”
“Yeah.” I breathed out. There was a difference between feeling a pit in my stomach because he was rejecting me or pushing me away, and feeling it because he thought I’d feel entitled to an action he didn’t want to take. “It’s fine. Always will be.”
“Okay.” The fight or flight instinct didn’t quite leave him as a result, but I watched as his gaze began to settle, to stop looking for every nook and cranny in the room. “I’m sorry. I wanted to go to the club with you; I just didn’t want to do more.”
“More?”
I wasn’t trying to push him, but I didn’t see where he was going with this now.
Santos grimaced. “I know we’ve technically fucked in front of others. With your online Dom, and with Tony, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to do it right there.”
“Santos, I…” Fuck. I ran a hand through my hair.
One day, I wouldn’t hate every second of trying to say what was on my mind and failing, but today was not that day.
“I would never… I wasn’t even thinking about that.
I just liked the idea of you being there, because everything is easier when you’re there. That’s it.”
“I didn’t want to watch others, either.”
I grimaced. When had I fucked up so bad, I hadn’t even explained the basics?
“Then you wouldn’t have. I mean, the club is all about sex, but not during a workshop, and there are areas you can go to, plus my friends would never do anything you weren’t comfortable with.
Consent also applies to bystanders, like…
Kara has impact play as a hard limit because of stuff with her ex, and no one will do anything when she’s in the room. You know.”
Did I think rambling about Kara helped? Nope. Did I still do it? Yeah. I had the urge to clamp a hand over my mouth to get me to stop talking, but thankfully, the verbal diarrhea died down on its own.
“That’s good. I’m…” He waved his hand around the space between us. “I’m sorry.”
I shook my head right away. “It’s fine. I know I keep pushing you.”
“I want you to.”
That didn’t make a whole lot of sense. I didn’t have the energy to fight it, though, so I just shrugged it away and went back to preparing for bed.
And to pretending the shiver that came over me when he got in the bed after me and spooned me like nothing was wrong between the two of us was just a response to the cold.