weren't puling their weight, and I'd listened to him share
rowdy, dirty jokes with his friends. He'd balked at cooking
and laundry because those were 'girls' work' and we'd
had screaming fits about separate checking accounts when
we were married because 'women whose husbands took
care of them right didn't need their own money.' I knew he
would never let me tel him what to do.
I didn't know him as wel as I thought I did.
I didn't know him as wel as I thought I did.
Chapter 30
Austin, without another word, turned and went to my
bedroom. I heard the creak of the headboard when he
grabbed it and of the mattress as he shifted his weight.
Then, silence but for the sound of my heart beating fast in
my ears and my breath trying to get unstuck from my
throat.
I hadn't wasted money on frily decorative pilows for my
bed, and I'd covered it with the worn quilt my grandma
had made for me when I was born. The headboard of
slatted wood had seen me through childhood and high
school, and I'd taken it from my mom's house to the
apartment I'd lived in after leaving Austin. We'd fucked in
my bed but had never shared it. My hands had gripped the
wood where his now clenched, but his never had.
He turned his head when I came in, then looked back at
the wal. His head bent, shoulders hunching, and I admired
the play of muscles in his back and thighs. His feet dipped
furrows in my bedspread as he pushed down with his toes.
I had to lean in the doorway to keep from going to my
knees at the sight. My fingers gripped the wood as the
knees at the sight. My fingers gripped the wood as the
cool metal of his belt buckle bit into my palm hard enough
to hurt. The sting of it pushed my blood faster through my
veins. The leather dangled, brushing my calf.
When I slapped it lightly against my palm, Austin tensed
but didn't take his hands away. He didn't look at me. The
muscles in his back and ass went tight, then released, and I
drew in a slow, silent breath.
Austin stayed in the place I had told him to stay. This man
could put me up against the wal with one hand. He could
break me, but he wasn't doing what I told him to do
because he wasn't able to say no. He wasn't afraid of me.
He trusted me.
That trust almost broke me more than his hands ever had.
It turned me upside down and inside out; it filed me up so
I couldn't imagine ever having been empty. I stood in the
doorway watching him give himself to me for whatever I
wanted, and the leather slid through my suddenly slick fists
with a sound like a whisper.
