Girl In Pieces (12 page)

“It doesn’t matter what the two of you have.” I shrugged. “You should have something that makes you happy. I think that’s supposed to be the point of everything. You get what you want with her and I’m…well, I’m the biggest mess in the world. I can’t take care of myself let alone someone else.”

 
“She doesn’t,” he said quickly. “It’s not like that.”

“I know what it’s like.”

“Kat…”

“I don’t need details.” I looked at him. He looked at me.

Josh went quiet. We crept past dark cars left on the street after last call. The bar was shuttered but for a muted glow from somewhere inside. Probably Brian’s office. There were no lights on in Josh’s apartment. There was no one waiting for him tonight.

All of the windows in my building were dark, except Avery had left a light on in her kitchen. It was a soft yellow glow, somewhere away from the window. Her stove, probably. For some reason it made me ache with home sickness. I wanted to burrow into my blankets and hibernate for at least fifty years.

Josh pulled into a spot outside the bar and killed the engine. I put a hand on the door handle, but when he didn’t immediately get out, neither did I.

“Are you going to be ok?” he asked.

“I don’t know.” The engine clicked as it cooled down. “No? Our friendship is toast. My brother is an asshole. My best friend is a traitor. I’m feeling like tomorrow is going to be pretty bad.”

“Don’t blame Julie.” The corner of his mouth twitched. “She knew I’d break down the doors to get you out. It was really more efficient than her plan of showing up and yelling at the desk sergeant until she got her way.”

I reached across the center console and touched his forearm. He was so strong, hard muscles and dark skin. I grazed the hairs on his arm, petting them, hardly touching him, but still the most calming, terrifying sensation I’d felt in weeks. This would be the last time I’d touch him, maybe ever, at least for a very long time. I needed a memory to hold onto.

My thumb carved its way around his wrist joint, falling to the notch between his thumb and forefinger. He watched with wide pupils, but didn’t stop me.

“Thank you. For coming to my rescue even though I’m not your problem.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” he said, that half smile playing his mouth into something I badly wanted to kiss. “You will
always
be my problem. No matter what.”

I snorted and withdrew my hand but he caught it out of the air and held it to the seat between us, our fingers threaded. I swallowed my nervousness and squeezed his hand.

“I should go.”

“I know.” He dropped back against his head rest and turned his head to look at me. “I’m finding it difficult to let you. You’re going to run back out there looking for a Dom and I will never be able to sleep again.”

“If it helps you sleep at night, I won’t be looking for another you. You were right all along, you know. When Thomas told me what submission really meant, I realized that wasn’t what had turned me on that night.” I swallowed, choking on the truth he needed to know and I needed to tell him, no matter how much it sucked saying out loud. “I knew I would have a hard time feeling that way with someone else. I’m not giving anyone else control over me.”

Josh lifted his head, his soft eyes narrowing. He spoke each word slowly and deliberately with that
obey me
voice that just knocked me out. “What, exactly, did he tell you submission was, Kat? What did he want from you?”

I bit my lip and hesitated. If I told Josh what Thomas said about anal sex, we’d start back over at the beginning with how naïve and careless I’d been. I didn’t want to go through that again.

Instead I looked down at our intertwined hands, mapped where our fingers crossed, where his skin became mine. When I loosened my hold on him, he tightened his on me.

“Kat, tell me. Tell me right now what he said to you.”

“It doesn’t matter…”

Josh reached across the cab and captured the back of my neck with his free hand and forced me to face him in the cage of his body. He dropped his chin so we were eye-to-eye, and though he didn’t hold me hard, I knew better than to try and pull away.

“Answer me.”

Obey.

“He told me,” I swallowed. “He told me that I would do things he wanted because it made him happy and that in turn would make me happy. He said submission was about wanting to meet his needs.”

I shook my head, trying to pull my face away from his but he didn’t let go, his fingers twisting up in the baby hairs at the base of my neck. He held me still even when I didn’t want him to see me anymore.

“I don’t want to lose myself, Josh. I wanted to meet your needs, that’s what turned me on. I don’t want to lose who I am for someone else’s vision of who I will be
for
them. I can’t imagine letting anyone else control my body. You were right, I’m not submissive. I’m not really anything.”

A long, electric silence stretched between us. His thumb caressed the soft skin behind my ear, but otherwise his face didn’t change, his eyes stayed unblinking on mine. Whatever he was thinking warred in those beautiful blue eyes.

“I’m going to kill him,” he said suddenly, let go, pushed the door open and climbed out into the rain.

His sudden departure terrified me. I’d said something wrong, done something wrong. The way his blurred shape stalked in front of the Explorer, shoulders bent forward, fists ready to for a fight, I knew I’d made another terrible mistake telling him how I felt. 

Josh yanked my door open.

“Let’s go.” He took hold of me as I climbed out. “We have to talk. Not out here, but you’re not going home until I let you.”

Living room. Kitchen. Bedroom. We didn’t speak. I didn’t question him. He didn’t provide me with reassurances or pretty words. He headed straight for his bedroom, all his focus bent towards getting me inside. He tightened his hold on me, whisked me inside, and didn’t so much as take a breath until he had the door firmly shut and locked behind us.

Time slowed then. I was aware of his skin against mine, the brush of his thumb across the backs of my fingers, his shadow lit only by the streetlights outside. He switched on a small, muted paper lamp on his book shelf. It cast a pale blue nighttime glow over the room, more shadows than light, which only just let us see each other and the narrow path to his bed.

I didn’t need light to navigate my way around his room though. I’d been in this room a thousand times. I’d been there with him, laying parallel the wrong way across his bed, listening to music and barely talking. I’d been there alone, ransacking his drawers for secrets and clothes to steal. I plundered his book shelves, napped, and pretended like I belonged there.

Until tonight though, I’d never noticed his scent.

Husky like aftershave and leather, sweet like amaretto soaked cherries. It was Josh but concentrated, overwhelming. I wanted to crawl onto his bed and bury my face into the downy soft pillows and inhale all of him.

But there was no time to linger. He was on a mission, hunting for something I wasn’t sure I was ready for. Watching him, all his focus now on the junction of our hands, hot to the touch and threaded like a matching set. But when he squeezed my hand he was gentle, almost nervous. The sort of touch of a first date, first kiss, first everything.

Josh pulled me to a stop at the end of his bed and let go for the first time in many minutes. His absence, no matter how brief, let in the wet and the chill I hadn’t noticed when he touched me.

As if reading my thoughts, he returned with a big, fluffy white towel from his bathroom and unfolded it one corner at a time before slinging it over his shoulder and out of the way.

“Arms up,” he said quietly. I lifted them above my head, feeling strangely vulnerable by the request. Josh caught the hem of my shirt and dragged the heavy, wet thing up my body, painfully slow and deliberate. His fingers skimmed up the undersides of my arms and freed the drippy shirt from my outstretched fingers.

Skirt next. He settled his hands on my hips and turned me around, his control and confidence lingering on the clasp at the small of my back. The fabric let go with a
hush
and pillowed on the carpet in a circle around my feet.

Standing there in front of him in nothing but my panties, bra, and socks should have made me feel nervous and embarrassed. I should have been anxious about his eyes falling over the shape of my stomach. But those thoughts, those debilitating worries, never surfaced. Josh’s hands were too gentle and careful, the care one took of something very important them.

Something that could be broken too easily.

He collected me inside the towel and the circle of his arms and scrubbed the plush terrycloth across the back of my neck, down my spine, lolling briefly at the small of my back just above my panties.

When he came to face me again, his expression was attentive though he never met my gaze directly. This was his Monday morning inventory look, sleepily focused on a task he adored. Counting, labeling, listing, putting his world in order. Now he listed my body parts in his hands: two shoulders, a throat, two breasts – half-moons pressing against lace and satin. Two arms right down to the tips of ten reaching fingers.

When Josh dragged the towel to my stomach, to the swell just above my belly button and below, framed by a narrow waist and wide hips, he froze. His hand pressed the towel to my stomach while two fingers grazed my soft, fleshy hip. His drugged gaze traced where my panties hugged my hips and dipped below my belly button and back up again, perilously close to a forbidden space he’d only once transgressed in the dark room of a stranger’s house. His breath caught, labored, and only when he closed his eyes and exhaled did he shake loose from the trance.

All this he did wordlessly and somehow I knew better than to break the silence. God, I barely breathed for fear it would be too loud. I couldn’t take my eyes off his content rite of ownership. Once, he licked his lips and my knees almost gave out. He caught my waist in both hands when I swayed and closed his eyes and I closed mine and for a moment we were enveloped in the quiet of his bedroom, surrounded by the scent of him on my wet skin.

Finally, after what felt like ages of ritual, just as it had been with the handcuffs in the police station, he drew his hands through my wet hair and wrung the excess water out into the towel before patting my cheeks and eyelids dry.

Even through it all Josh never met my gaze directly. He never communicated but through care and rapt attention. His steady fixation told me he was right where he wanted to be doing the most important thing in the world to him.

Satisfied, he set out on his next task. He opened his closet first, picked a t-shirt, then went to his dresser for a pair of sweat pants. He held each leg open for me to step into, dressing me as attentively as he had undressed me.

The whole act, undressing and dressing, took on an almost religious resonance and I felt, for the first time in my life despite wearing his well-worn sweatpants and a Black Keys t-shirt, what it was like to be beautiful and worshipped.

There was nothing sexual about any of it. His hands brushed my skin but didn’t caress or grope or linger too long. He gave no orders, not out loud any way. I felt like there were unspoken ones though –
Don’t speak. Let me take care of you. Don’t argue.

Let me. Let me. Let me.

Once I was dressed in his warm, dry clothes, he turned his desk chair around and urged me into it. Then he sat on the bench at the end of his bed so that we were knee-to-knee. Close enough to touch, but not touching. He rested his elbows on his knees and leaned close, close enough to see the shiny raindrops in his hair and the one that shook loose and slid down the shape of his neck. I imagined pressing my tongue to his throat and capturing each droplet. The idea left me a little breathless.

“Are you ok?” he asked. “Do you need anything?”

“I’m ok.”

“Good. I need you to know a few things. About me. About submission and domination. He was wrong. So fucking wrong. He lied to you about what submission is. It isn’t about you meeting my needs.” He nodded to the space where my clothes were now piled sopping next to the dresser. “It’s about that. It’s about us meeting each other’s needs.”

“I don’t understand. We didn’t
do
anything.”

“We don’t have to
do
anything.” His mouth turned up in a brief smile. “It’s not about sex, if that’s what you mean.”

“It’s not?” I frowned. “Are you sure?”

“Positive.” He took my nervous, wringing hands and separated them, one palm on each of his knees, forcing me to lean towards him. Then he held them there. “Yes, there can be sex because being connected to someone in such an intense, intimate way can be incredibly erotic. It doesn’t have to go that far though, and often doesn’t. It’s about fulfilling each other’s needs in whatever form they may take. It is never about your Dom telling you what you are going to do and like regardless of how you feel about it. Whether that’s a caning which you don’t think you ever want, or your hair pulled, which you might not want tonight.”

Josh ran a thumb down each wrist, curiously circling the bone and trailing lazily up my arm. My elbow was no erogenous zone I’d ever heard of, but when he grazed the pads of his thumbs across the soft, skin inside my elbow, I felt it between my legs.

He watched his hands, fascinated by their adventure, and smiled with my reaction. “As a Dom, it is my responsibility and my pleasure to see to the care and comfort of my submissive. Just now you were sopping wet, freezing, and unhappy. I needed to get you warm and dry and make you feel better, even if it’s just dressing you in my clothes and rubbing your cold fingers and sitting with you until you fall asleep. None of that is sexual, but it is my job and responsibility and I love every fucking minute of it. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. How is that any different than any other relationship?”

Josh hesitated, then dropped his hands to my legs and followed a similar path up them as he had with my arms. He grazed up the insides of my thighs, stopping when his fingertips met the triangle where they squeezed closed. He kept his hands there while he spoke and I could barely concentrate on anything but where he held onto me.

“It’s exactly like any other relationship, but with some important differences depending on the couple. In the simplest terms, for some, it’s an everyday, all day, complete power exchange. I decide what you wear, what you eat, when. I am all decisions, all power, all control, all the time. Or, for others, the relationship manifests in non-sexual rules, even as mundane as your doing the dishes every day and when you break those rules and no matter in what context, I punish you for that behavior until it is corrected.”

I, you, we.
Every time he used these terms I shivered and he dug his fingers into my thighs to settle me. Twenty minutes ago he told me that
we
was an impossibility. There could be no
we
.

Had things changed or was this just a lesson he thought I needed to learn?

“Some submissives fulfill their needs with service only, no sexual contact at all. They take service orders, cleaning and cooking are common, and it makes them happy to fulfill someone else’s orders in this fashion. Considering the state of your apartment I am pretty sure you don’t fall into this category.”

I wrinkled my nose and he laughed quietly, his grin brilliant though brief. When he sobered, so did I.

“For most couples, it is simply when we decide to play, that’s when the Dominant, submissive relationship is activated. Then and only then.”

I swallowed and stared down between his spread knees, terrified to ask the question I needed to know. “Which one are you?”

“Open,” he ordered, circling his thumbs into my inner thigh. I obeyed and he slid his thumbs down the ‘y’ shape and forced them open further. Satisfied, he gripped me hard, and pulled me to the edge of my seat so he fit just between my knees.

“The correct question is,” his voice reprimanding, “is which one are
we
? Because you must understand that there is no one size fits all. Every relationship is both unique and equally correct.”

We.

My god, did he mean it? Did my Dom mean for me to believe in that one, perfect word?

“Ok.” I hesitated. “Which one are we, Josh?”

“Until you, I’ve been none of them. I’ve never had a relationship with a submissive that went beyond simple play dates and parties. For various reasons, I thought there was no way I’d be able to make someone happy every day of my life. I thought it was impossible. Look at our parents, they hated each other and neither you or Brian have ever experienced positive relationships with someone. I liked playing scenes and going home. And besides,” he grinned wolfishly. “How could I have ever had a girlfriend with you sleeping over every other night? I’d rather have had you here, untouchable on my couch, than someone less remarkable in my bed.”

“Are you kidding?” I asked softly, a flood of warmth climbing up my throat to my cheeks. “Look at me. I’m a mess. Almost arrested, nearly evicted, trying to sleep with my brother’s best friend. And that’s just in the last month.
I
can barely stand to be around me.”

Josh captured my chin between his thumb and forefinger and forced my eyes to meet his. He held me like that, not letting me hide my embarrassment when I tried. “Katrina, in the whole time you’ve been in my life you’ve always been a mess. It’s who you are. You don’t just jump in with both feet, you get a running start, hands in the air, and you don’t even check to see what’s at the bottom first. I wouldn’t want you to slow down for anything in the world. I’ve always been there when you jumped, just to see what would happen and to bandage you back up when you crashed. All this, long before I wanted to kiss you.”

He let go and leaned back, his knees spread just enough that it was hard not to lower my gaze where his shirt bunched around his belt buckle. He watched me, fiercely content, elbows braced against the bed, begging to be climbed.

It was very hard to look away.

“So where do the spankings and ropes and collars come in?”

Josh dropped his head back and laughed, a ripple of pleasure shivering down his arms. “God, I would love to show you.”

Oof
, I felt his words right in my chest, between my legs, tingling at the tips of my fingers.

“Ok, then,” I breathed. “Show me.”

His laughter vanished and all at once he was on his feet, dragging his shirt off and tossing it to the pile of my clothes. His chest, muscles shaped from rock, tan and faintly scarred on his right side from a motorcycle accident in college. A thick black tattoo banded around his bicep covering another ugly scar. Along the bottom edge of the black band were words, too small to easily read unless you were pressed up against him.