Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
A nd so, it began. It wasn't quite the start of the beautiful kind of friendship either of them wanted, since schedules and obligation limited their time together, but they were certainly both on a track that led them to believe in the fulfilment of their own desires and dreams.
Xavier introduced her to those at the club he had close personal relationships with. Joel, Jake, Logan and Connor, and Grace struck up an easy friendship with their wives, as well as Trinity, their assistant manager. It pleased him that she got on so well with the people he spent most of his free time with. That was important to him, and cemented his feelings that maybe Grace was ‘the one.’
They scened together regularly, spent time together when they could, and enjoyed each other's company. And both of them judged the success of their budding relationship against their own agenda.
Neither of them was being deceitful. They simply had no idea that the other had an entirely different intent to their own.
They weren't being manipulative either. The two of them were simply content to see where things were heading and judged everything with two very different sets of criteria.
For Xavier, the fact that their time together was so difficult to schedule outside the club, a specific period they both made a concerted effort to keep clear, was confirmation that his own perception of the kind of relationship he wanted was entirely justified. As much as he wanted to spend time with her outside of their day to day routines, it was just so difficult to find it. When she was free in the evenings, he was on call or at the hospital. When he had his weekday morning and afternoon off, Grace was working. During the weekends, he was busy with his research. There simply weren’t enough hours in the day. Xavier would be lying if he didn’t admit to being frustrated. He wanted to be with her. He wanted to know what made her tick. He wanted to expand on what they’d started to build and find out what her own dreams were. To find out if they were compatible in the ways he believed they could be. She was everything he wanted in a woman… and he wanted more.
He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t already deeply committed. His feelings for Grace weren’t anything he’d known before. He wanted to make her happy. He wanted to see her every day. He wanted forever. He just wasn’t sure how they could successfully make it happen unless they followed his plan. Because he didn’t want to let her down. He didn’t want the shortcomings in his schedule to put her off. For her to mistake his lack of time as a lack of commitment, when nothing could be further from the truth.
Whereas for Grace, the fact they were so perfectly in sync in their kink compatibility, and also in tune on such a sexually combustible level, led her to believe that compatibility would spill over into wider areas of their relationship. Because, surely, two people who were so effortlessly attuned to each other in two of the most important areas of a relationship, especially one as distinctive as theirs, must also be a perfect fit in the other areas which were important. That certainty fed her belief that Xavier was the perfect baby daddy.
Like her, he didn't have children. His body clock surely must be making itself known, just like hers, as the years advanced. And that conviction allowed her to leap feet first into their budding relationship, confident she had indeed met her soulmate. After all, she had never felt this magnetic pull of attraction and desire so strongly in her entire life, so how could she possibly be wrong?
So, while Grace was weaving dreams of houses in the suburbs with a nursery and a pretty garden, with room for a child, maybe children, plural, to run around, Xavier was wondering just how long he should wait before he broached the subject of an unconventional, 24/7, remote Master/slave relationship.