Five
Candace
I took shallow breaths, each filled with the spice and leather scent Pax had worn since high school. I could already feel the clouds of doubt pushing in, a mix of doubt and disappointment in myself that I’d caved again.
“Uh-uh, stop it,” Pax muttered into my hair, his arms tightening. “Talk to me, okay? Is the sex so bad you can’t stand to be around me? Am I just a mercy fuck every few years?”
I scoffed. “You know that’s not it.”
“That’s a relief ‘cause, baby, you’re a little bit of a blow to my confidence.”
“I’m sorry. It’s not you—”
He cut me off with a lightning-fast kiss. “What did I say about saying that?”
“You’re so bossy. Especially during sex.”
“You like it,” he laughed. But I didn’t reply, and he stiffened. “Wait, you do like it, don’t you?”
I groaned, fire heating my cheeks, and I turned to bury my face in the pillow.
“This is so embarrassing,” I said into the bedding, but I wasn’t sure he heard me since the words were muffled by the synthetic down.
“Uh-uh, don’t,” he demanded, turning me back and climbing over me, his warmth better than any blanket. “Don’t run away from me.”
I huffed. “I’m right here.”
“Physically,” he countered. “Tell me what’s wrong. I can’t help how I am when we have sex. You wake up this…caveman in me. I want to totally dominate your body…and your body wants it, too. Your nipples get so tight, and your pussy gets so wet. You react prettily to every word I say, and you obey like the perfect little submissive. You can tell me you don’t like how it is with us, but your body doesn’t lie.”
He wasn’t wrong. Even now, my traitorous body quickened under his words.
“I do like it when we’re having sex. I like the ways you touch me, in and out of bed—the way you talk to me, too.”
“Then what’s the problem?” he exclaimed, and I heard years’ worth of frustration in the question. He loomed over me, held up by his arms, the cold seeping between us down to where our groins still touched and our legs tangled. Otherwise, he didn’t touch me. In fact, he seemed moments from leaving me alone in this big bed. His large hands that could work magic across my skin were planted on the mattress and didn’t seem inclined to do the damage I’d seen men take out on women who displeased them.
Pax’s brows knitted. “Are you scared of me?”
“I should be stronger. I…promised.”
“Promised who?” he asked incredulous.
I pulled at him. “Can you come down here? I’m getting cold.”
His head shook as if I’d broken a spell, and he instantly complied, dropping to the mattress beside me and tugging me flush to his body. He tucked the blankets tight around me.
“Better,” he asked, without any sarcasm.
“Yeah, thanks.” I snuggled into him, my hand on his chest, directly over his heart that beat steadily against my palm. I soaked him in, letting him fill my senses before he insisted on the explanation I didn’t want to give.
We stayed silent for a long moment, his fingers running up and down my back, the two of us wrapped in an intimacy I’d never allowed us to have before now. Yes, we’d had sex, but never basking in an afterglow. And I wondered, if I didn’t always run away, would we have had this all this time? If I hadn’t run from him, from us, after our first time in high school or that time in the autumn of our junior year of college, where would we be? Would it have changed our life paths or would we have remained the same? Would we have stayed together and not been so alone. I’d been…so alone.
“When I was seven,” I started, “my parents went out for the night and I had a babysitter. She was in her early twenties, I think. I was supposed to be in bed, and her boyfriend came over. There was so much noise from them fighting—mostly him yelling at her and getting rough with her. I didn’t know what was happening, though, and I want to see… I saw… I saw him grab her, shake her and heard him ordering her around. It scared me.”
“You don’t think what happens between us is like that, do you?”
I didn’t answer. I didn’t have the right words. My thoughts had wrestled with our situation too much, and everything was tangled into knots. My body said no Pax wasn’t like that. Parts of my brain agreed. But other parts of my brain…they told me to run.
“He saw me in the living room doorway then stormed out of the house. She was crying and put me back to bed. And she made me promise to never let a man order me around or get rough with me. And I did. And I’ve always kept that promise. Except when you and I sleep together—when we have sex, anyway.”
Pax reared back and stared at me as if I’d slapped him.
“I’m sorry,” I quickly blurted. “I don’t mean that you’ve ever hurt me or that I’ve ever thought you’re abusive. I don’t… I don’t think of it that way. But I promised her. And… I’m sorry, Pax.”
He scrubbed a hand over his mouth and rolled onto his back, staring up at the dark ceiling. “Candy, I… I don’t even know what to say. I would…never… I mean, yeah… When we’re in bed, it brings out a possessive, dominant side of me that wants to control you and control your pleasure, but I would never ever grab you or shake you or scream at you or do any of the abusive things that guy did.”
“I know you’re not an abuser.”
“No, I’m not.”
I stared at his profile, deafening silence around us while tears burned my eyes. Every time we were together, I managed to ruin things. This time, we hadn’t even had sex. We hadn’t even gotten further than a blow job and I’d put distance between us.
My eyes closed while I took a shaky breath and tried to hold in the sob that threatened to roll up my throat.
“I promise you,” Pax started quietly, “even if we argue, because all couples do, I will not do what that guy did. I’m not like that, Candace. I don’t want a woman, my woman, to be subservient to me. Submissive in sex? Yes. But in life? No. What she wanted, your babysitter, she wanted you not to be with an abusive man who would stomp all over you, your life, your hopes, and your autonomy.”
“I know.”
“That’s not me. If you let me into your life, real life, I’ll prove it to you.”
God, how I wanted that. I could have that if I was brave, couldn’t I?
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yeah.” I needed a minute. I needed to process what I should have intuitively already known, and thankfully, he didn’t seem inclined to rush me, even if tension rolling off him. Pax had been in my life since kindergarten. I knew him. I knew how he was.
“Okay,” I repeated again finally, mostly to myself. God, how could one moment in my life, nineteen years ago, mess me up so badly. I was stupid to equate kinkiness in bed to being weak, to believe allowing it gave a man carte blanche to railroad me.
That wasn’t Pax.
“I believe you. You’re right.” I took a shaky breath. “I’m…I’m so sorry, Pax. I don’t know how can you even forgive me?”
“I don’t know. Maybe, you need a spanking,” he sighed, with poorly disguised humor.
I choked a watery laugh at his levity.
“Too soon?” he asked.
“Maybe. But… Will you promise me something?”
“I promise not to be like that guy.”
“Not that. Deep down, I know you won’t be like him. Will you promise not to change how we are? Sexually, I mean.”
In a flash, Pax was over me again, and my hands were pinned to the pillow with his fingers manacled around my wrists. “Like this?”
“Yeah,” I breathed, my whole body melting with relief and pleasure. Anticipation simmered through me, warming and softening and readying for him. And for the first time, I didn’t have to battle away that nasty inner hag heckling me for being weak. I actually felt strong as I peered up at him and gave him the power to bring me pleasure. “Yeah, exactly like this.”