It Was on the Way to You
Chapter Twelve
The key turned smoothly, muscle memory carrying my hand even though exhaustion had settled into every joint like fucking concrete.
Forty-eight hours. One wildfire in the neighboring mountains, close enough to San Jacinto that I'd spent the last two days acutely, uncomfortably aware of the distance between me and Vera in a way I hadn't let myself examine too carefully while I was still on the line. She'd sent exactly one text.
Be safe.
Then nothing else, because she understood the system, understood I couldn't text back, understood the water droplet would come when it came.
It had come six hours ago. She'd responded immediately.
I'll be waiting.
I'd showered at the station, scrubbed the smoke off until my skin was raw, changed into clean clothes, and then driven not to my apartment but to the bakery on Main Street.
Past closing. The owner, Amber, whom I'd known since we were both seventeen and making questionable decisions in the San Jacinto High parking lot, had kept it waiting for me exactly as promised when I'd called her a week ago in what I would describe as a controlled panic.
"You're ridiculous," she'd said, handing over the box.
"I know."
"She must be something."
"She's everything," I'd said, which was the most embarrassing thing I'd said out loud in recent memory and also the most accurate.
Now I was standing in Vera's hallway with a mocha chiffon cake with coffee buttercream and a wrapped box in my messenger bag, and carrying the peace of mind of someone who had pulled off a logistical miracle on four hours of sleep and significant smoke inhalation.
The shower was running. Perfect.
I slipped into the bedroom, set the cake on the nightstand, and pulled the candles from my jacket pocket.
Thirty. I'd counted twice in the truck, because I was absolutely the kind of person who would show up to a surprise birthday with the wrong number of candles and have to spend the rest of the evening explaining myself, and I refused to be that person for Vera.
Beside the cake went the wrapped box—the one we'd discussed in hushed, laughing whispers over a bottle of shiraz three weeks ago, when courage and wine had briefly and productively overlapped.
The one I'd spent an embarrassing amount of time researching, because I wanted it to be right, and nothing involving Vera was worth doing halfway.
I lit the candles, stepped back into the hallway, and leaned against the wall just as the bathroom door opened.
Vera emerged in a cloud of vanilla-scented steam, wrapped in a towel, her wet hair dark gold against her shoulders, humming the same 1940s song she'd been cycling through for two weeks. Completely in her own world. Completely unaware.
"Hey, birthday girl."
She shrieked.
The towel slipped. I caught her before she could go anywhere, arms wrapping around her warm, damp self as the towel pooled at our feet.
"Hi, baby," I tried again, grinning.
She grabbed my shoulders with both hands and stared at me like I'd manifested through the drywall.
"Petra." She was attempting outrage and making very little progress on it. "You scared me half to death. When did you get here? The water droplet was hours ago, I thought you weren't back until—"
"Wanted to surprise you." I kissed her jaw. Her cheek. The corner of her mouth. "Happy birthday, baby."
She made a sound that was attempting to be indignant and failing comprehensively. "You're supposed to give some kind of warning. I could have been—" She looked down at herself and then up at me. "I'm not wearing anything."
"I noticed."
"Petra."
"Vera."
She bit her lip. The attempted indignation collapsed entirely. Her arms slid around my neck, her damp skin cool against my jacket, and when I kissed her properly, she made that small sound I always felt everywhere.
"You're exhausted," she murmured against my mouth.
"I'm fine. I got you a cake."
"You drove directly from a forty-eight-hour fire to a bakery."
"The bakery was on the way."
"It is not on the way."
"It was on the way to you," I said, "which is the only way that matters."
She pulled back and looked at me with the expression she wore when I said something she wanted to devour me for. "You're going to be the end of me," she said quietly.
"Likewise." I pulled her closer. "Come on. I have something to show you."
"I'm still not wearing anything."
"I'm aware of that, too."
She laughed an unguarded laugh, and I lifted her because it was her birthday and I could, and she made a token protest that neither of us believed and let me carry her naked body down the hall, firewoman-style.
She saw the candles first. Thirty small flames reflected in her eyes, the cake on the nightstand, the wrapped box with its red bow beside it.
"Petra," she breathed.
"Make a wish."
She looked at me for a long moment, eyes brimming with tears. Then she leaned toward the cake, closed her eyes, and blew every candle out in one breath.
"What did you wish for?" I asked.
"Can't tell you."
"It's already true," I said. "Whatever it was."
She turned to look at me, something shining in her eyes. Then she spotted the box. "Can I—"
"It's your birthday."
Her hands weren't entirely steady as she pulled off the bow, tore the paper, and lifted the lid. Then her face went scarlet from the throat up in approximately one second—a new personal record even for Vera, who blushed with impressive speed and dedication.
"Oh my god," she whispered. Then, with significantly more volume, "Oh my god, Petra."
I was laughing. I couldn't help it. The harness lay in the box, black leather and polished hardware, alongside the deep purple silicone we'd spent an extremely memorable evening selecting together three weeks ago, increasingly brave with shiraz and each other.
"We talked about it," I said, composing myself with some effort. "But if you've changed your mind—"
"I haven't." She looked up at me, cheeks scarlet. "I really, really haven't. I just can't believe you actually—" She covered her face with both hands. "I was starting to think you'd forgotten."
"I don't forget the things you want."
A muffled sound came from behind her hands.
"Vera." I pulled her hands away, tipping her chin up. "Why are you embarrassed? We've done significantly more embarrassing things than opening a box."
"It's different when it's in a box with a bow on it," she said, voice slightly hysterical. "It looks so official."
"It is official. I researched it."
"You researched it?"
"Extensively. There are review sites. Communities. People with very strong opinions about harness construction and stitching."
She stared at me. "You went on strap-on forums."
"For you? Yes. Absolutely yes. I would go back tomorrow."
She dissolved into laughter, the kind that took over her whole face, and I watched her and thought I love you for approximately the four hundredth time in recent weeks, and as usual, did not say it out loud. Just let it swarm heavily in my chest, where it had been living for months.
"Tell me what you want," I said when she'd recovered. "Whatever it is. You don't have to be embarrassed."
She took a breath. Her fingers twisted in her lap. The blush was still high but shifting into something else, eyes darkening, the composure she usually wore so easily falling away like she'd simply decided she didn't need it tonight.
"In my head," she started, "when I've imagined this—"
"Yeah?"
"You're holding me down." She said it steadily, looking right at me.
"And I can't move. And you're—taking what you want.
Not asking. Just—" She exhaled. "And I want your hand on my throat again.
But this time I want to feel it more. I want you to—" She stopped, and I could see her choosing the words deliberately, the same care she gave everything that mattered.
"I want to feel like you own me. Tonight. "
The room was very quiet for a moment.
"Is that—"
"Vera." I held her face in both hands. "That is the opposite of a problem. That can absolutely be arranged, baby."
A full-body shiver moved through her.
"Safeword," I said.
"Parachute."
"Good girl." I held her gaze. "If my hand is on your throat and you need to stop, tap my arm twice. I'll feel it."
She nodded. "Two taps."
"Say it back."
"Two taps." Clear. Steady. Not afraid, but certain, which was very different.
"Good." I reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, letting my thumb rest against her jaw for one moment. Then I stood.
"On the bed," I said. "On your back. Arms above your head."
She moved immediately. Lay back against the pillows, arms sliding up, wrists crossed against the headboard, and looked at me with those enormous dark eyes in the candlelight, like she was waiting to be unwrapped.
I took my time undressing. Let her watch.
She'd earned it, after three weeks of imagining this, and I wanted her so primed by the time I crossed the room that she was already coming apart before I'd touched her.
By the time I buckled the harness on, adjusted the straps and tightened them under her hungry gaze, her thighs were already pressing together and her breathing was audible from across the room.
"Don't move those hands," I said.
"I won't."
"I'm not asking."
"I won't," she said again, differently. Lower. Meaning it in all the ways it could mean.
I climbed over her and didn't kiss her. Just looked at her. The candlelight on her flushed skin, her hair spread across the pillow, her wrists crossed exactly where I'd put them, her chest rising and falling with the effort of lying still while I hovered above her, not yet touching anything.
"Please," she said. Barely a sound.
"Please, what?"
"Please touch me."
"Where?"
She made a sound that was almost a laugh and almost not. "Everywhere. Anywhere. Petra."
I got my mouth to her throat and bit down.
Not soft. Not gentle. The kind of bite that left a mark, that she'd feel tomorrow, that would tell her every time she touched it what tonight had been. She cried out, her whole body jerking, her wrists lifting off the headboard—