Chapter 19 #2
Ruby laughs. Full, real, filling the whole room, and my chest cracks open the rest of the way.
We eat at the table. Ruby beside me, her knee pressed against mine under the table, her hand finding my thigh when she thinks nobody is watching.
Everybody is watching. Nobody says a word about it except East, who mouths "soundproofing" at me from across the room.
I respond with a chin tilt that makes him laugh hard enough to choke on his coffee.
After breakfast, the clubhouse empties. Knox and Sloane leave first. Darla needs a real bed, so East takes her home.
Kyle lingers near Amelia until she leaves, then follows five minutes later pretending he isn't. Malachi and Candace head upstairs.
James and Maggie are last, Maggie pressing a kiss to Ruby's cheek on her way out.
Ruby and I are alone. The main room is quiet, coffee cups in the sink, blankets folded on the couches. She sits cross-legged on the couch, her hands wrapped around a second mug, still wearing my shirt.
"Nash."
"Yeah."
"Earlier. When you said I push because I'm looking for someone strong enough to hold it." She turns the mug in her hands. "Is there a word for what we are?"
"What do you mean?"
"The way I am with you. The pushing, the provoking, the make me thing.
And the way you respond to it. The way you get calm when I get loud, the way your voice drops, the way you—" She shifts on the couch.
"I've never been like this with anyone. I've never wanted someone to pin my hands and tell me to hold still.
That's not... I mean, that's not standard operating procedure. "
I sit beside her. Close enough that her knee touches my thigh.
"It's called a power exchange," I say. "What you're describing. The dynamic between a Dominant and a brat."
"A brat." She repeats the word, testing it. "That sounds like an insult."
"It's not. A brat is someone who pushes to feel the resistance. The pushing isn't rebellion. It's connection. You test the boundary because you need to know the boundary will hold."
"And the Dominant?"
"Holds the boundary. Sets the structure. Creates the safety so the brat can push without fear."
She's quiet for a long moment. Her fingers trace the rim of the mug.
"Have you done this before?" she asks. "With someone else?"
"Once. A long time ago."
"How long?"
"Eight years."
She nods, processing. "And Vesper. You're a member."
"I am. Amelia processed my membership when the club restructured the venue."
"Have you... used it?"
"No. The club needed someone inside who understood that world. I signed up. Haven't brought anyone."
She looks at me. "You joined a sex club and you've never used it."
"No."
"Nash, that's like buying a sports car and leaving it in the garage."
"I was waiting."
The words land. Her face shifts. She looks down at her mug, and when she looks up again her eyes are bright.
"How old are you?" she asks.
"Thirty-two."
"I'm twenty-two."
"I know."
"That's ten years, Nash."
"I know how math works, Ruby."
"I'm just saying. You have a decade of experience on me. That's a lot of..." She waves her hand. "That's a lot."
"Does it bother you?"
"It doesn't bother me. It makes me nervous."
"Why?"
She sets her mug down. Pulls her knees up, wrapping her arms around them, making herself small in the way Ruby rarely makes herself small.
"I've been with one person," she says. "One.
My on-again off-again boyfriend in high school.
And it was fine. It was very fine. It was aggressively mediocre.
He was sweet, and we fumbled through it.
Then we broke up, got back together, and broke up again.
Eventually I went to college but he didn't, and that was that. "
"The guy from the prom picture."
Her eyes snap to mine. "You remember the prom picture?"
"Your mom showed it to me at the cookout. Green dress. His hand on your waist. He looked terrified."
"He WAS terrified. My dad cleaned his shotgun at the kitchen table while Tyler waited in the living room.
My mom had to physically remove the gun.
Tyler almost didn't come inside." She laughs, then goes quiet.
"But that's it. That's my whole history.
One fumbling high school boyfriend who was scared of my father and had no idea what he was doing. " She looks at me. "Then there's you."
"Then there's me."
"You who has a membership at a sex club, a decade of experience, and the ability to make me come so hard I can't feel my legs." She's blushing. Deeply. "The gap is significant, Nash."
I reach over and take her hand. Pull it into my lap. Her fingers curl around mine.
"The gap doesn't matter."
"Easy for you to say. You're on the side with all the experience."
"Ruby." I wait until she looks at me. "What happened upstairs was the best sex I've ever had. And it wasn't because of technique or experience. It was because it was you."
She stares at me. Her mouth opens, and I watch her reaching for something clever, something sharp. Something that will turn the moment sideways before it can land.
"Don't," I say.
Her mouth closes. She swallows hard.
"You mean that," she says.
"I mean that."
I lean forward and press my mouth to hers. Soft. Slow. Her hand comes up to my jaw, holding me there, and when I pull back her eyes are wet. She leans into me, her head finding my shoulder, her hand still in mine. We sit there while the morning light shifts across the floor.
"Can I ask you something else?" she says after a while.
"Ask."
"Earlier, when I told you about watching the other girls get pulled away. Candace and Sloane and Darla. And you promised me every surface of the clubhouse." Her mouth curves, then fades. "But it wasn't really about the sex, Nash. It was about being chosen."
My thumb traces her knuckle. I wait.
"I love who I am," she says. "I do. My parents raised me to be loud and unapologetic. To take up space. My mom always said, 'Ruby, you are not too much. The room is too small.' I believe that. I live that."
"But."
"But being that person, being the loud one, the funny one, the one who fills every silence and carries every mood.
.. People love being around me. They do.
I'm fun and a good time. I'm the person you invite to every party because I'll make sure nobody has a bad night.
" Her voice tightens. "Then the party ends.
Everyone pairs off. Everyone goes home with someone.
And I'm the one closing down, putting away the bottles, wiping the counter, driving myself home. " She pauses. "Someone has to, right?"
The words hit differently this time. I hear what's underneath them.
"I've always been chosen last, Nash. Or chosen for the wrong reasons.
Chosen because I'm fun. Chosen because I'm easy to be around.
Because I make other people feel comfortable.
" She sits up and looks at me. "Nobody has ever chosen me because they couldn't stand not to.
Nobody has ever looked at me across a room full of people and decided I was the one they couldn't walk away from. "
"Ruby."
"I know it sounds pathetic—"
"It doesn't sound pathetic." I turn her face toward me, my hand on her jaw. "And you're wrong."
"About which part?"
"The last part." My thumb traces her cheekbone.
"I've been looking at you across rooms for over a year.
Every room. Every time. You walk in and my chest changes.
My sweeps go late. My jaw fights. Before my brain catches up, my hand reaches for you.
" I hold her eyes. "Ruby, I didn't choose you. I couldn't have chosen anyone else."
Her chin trembles. Her eyes fill. She lets the tears come this time, two of them tracking down her cheeks, rolling over my thumb.
"That's the Dom thing, isn't it?" she says through the tears, trying to smile. "You see things I can't see about myself."
"That's not the Dom thing. That's a me thing. That's a you and me thing."
She laughs, wet, broken, beautiful. She presses her forehead against mine and breathes.
"I want to learn," she says. "About the dynamic. About what we are. I want to understand it."
"We'll figure it out together."
"You'll be patient with me?"
"Ruby." I pull back so she can see my face. "I've been patient with you for fourteen months. I think I can manage."
"Oh, THAT'S how you're going to play it? Throwing the fourteen months in my face? After the wall? After the GARGOYLE era?"
"Gargoyle era?"
"The period where you stood against walls without speaking, looking brooding and dangerous while I threw jokes at you like confetti. That era. The era I'm going to bring up in every argument for the rest of your life."
"The rest of my life."
She goes still. Hears what she said. Her eyes search my face.
"I didn't mean—"
"Yeah you did."
The silence holds. Her hand tightens in mine.
"Yeah," she says quietly. "I did."
I pull her into me. Her body fits against mine, her head on my chest, my arms around her. The clubhouse is quiet. The morning light moves across the floor. Her heartbeat settles against my ribs.
My lips press against the top of her head.
"My girl," I murmur.
Her hand finds the headband on my wrist. Her fingers gently trace the faded red fabric. Carefully. She doesn't pull away from it anymore. She touches it the way you touch something that belongs to someone you love, with respect for the weight it carries.
"We'll find her, Nash," she says. "We'll find Sera."