All the furniture from my old playroom was here, including the bed — which I still needed time to assemble, so we had to make do with a mattress on the floor. The dresser filled with ropes and toys was pushed up against a wall crookedly, some of the black silk hanging like vines from the top drawer. The trunk at the foot of the bed contained some of the things I used to stash in the lake house closet. Other than that, the rest of our toys were still in storage from the move.
Restraints were still wrapped around the mattress from the last time we played.
As soon as we entered the room, Luke was in character. His eyes went down, and he whirled around to face me.
We were chest to chest. I could feel my heart begin to race as the feeling of having control shot through my body.
When I opened my mouth to speak, my voice came out all low and dangerous.
"You've been a naughty boy. Are you ready for your punishment?"
"Yes, Sir."
Luke
Later that night, my ass was sore and red as I laid next to Adam in our dark bedroom upstairs. I felt completely spent, exhausted from the exploration of our fantasies.
He made me come three times.
Adam had one of his thick arms draped over my body, being the big spoon.
Just when I thought he was asleep, he nuzzled his bristly beard into the back of my neck and said, “You know I love you more than anything in the world, right, Luke?”
Warm and fuzzies fluffed in my stomach. “I love you too, Adam. I didn’t think love would be like… like this.”
“What did you think it would be like?” he asked.
That gave me pause, and my mind drifted to my abusive ex, Kirk. The one who used BDSM as an excuse to bully me in the bedroom. To him, aftercare like what Adam was giving me right now was unheard of.
Lately, I’d been noticing Adam asking questions like this: Questions that tried to unscrew the lid of the jar I kept all of my deepest, darkest insecurities and secrets inside.
It made me nervous. Had my anxiety shaken us loose? Was Adam trying to dive into my soul to find out exactly how fucked up I was?
That was one of the reasons I wanted to get a therapist. I knew it wasn’t healthy to withhold these things from Adam, but on the other hand, I knew it was wrong to use trauma as a glue to hold two people together.
That’s how you ended up in a toxic relationship.
“I thought it would be… never mind,” I said.
“Oh, come on,” he said with a gentle squeeze of his arm. “You can’t just start something like that and then take it away.”
“Wow, look at you being all demanding,” I teased, evading his question.
“Well, you’re supposed to be the bossy one,” he chuckled.
I smiled at the nickname he’d given me, Bossy Bottom. It was something sacred and special between us, a nickname that tied us together and represented everything we shared. He was the scary, burly Dom. I was his sassy twink bottom boy.
I bossed him around… occasionally. And for some unknown reason, it turned him on.
“Don’t think I didn’t notice you avoided my question,” Adam said.
Dammit, I thought to myself.
“You can tell me anything,” Adam urged, squeezing me securely under the blankets.
“You don’t tell me everything,” I argued.
Regret plunged through my soul as I felt him recoil the tiniest bit.
“Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that,” I admitted. “I know your job is super-secret and all that… and you don’t want it to bleed into your life with me. But I feel like those parts of your life that you enjoy most are in the dark.”
He was silent for a few seconds, and I wished I could read his mind.
“Being with you… spending time with you, it’s like an oasis,” Adam said slowly. “When I’m out in the field, it’s like everything in me that’s programmed to protect, to be on high alert, to channel stress into action, is on full blast. All the time.”
I was quiet, listening carefully. I’d never heard Adam talk about his job in this way before.
“And I don’t want to pollute our oasis with any of the stress of the day.”
“Sorry, I know,” I admitted, feeling guilty again. “It’s just that I want to know everything about you.”
“You know everything important about me,” he assured me with a whisper. “Everything important about me… is you.”
“That doesn’t count,” I said stubbornly, rolling away from him.
He looked surprised, the beam of moonlight from the window falling across his face.
I turned to face him. “Our relationship isn’t just about you spoiling me. I can’t say I don’t enjoy it, but I want to help you, too. You don’t always have to be the hero for me. Let me be the hero for you once in a while.”
I could see a hardness in his eyes even here in the darkness. He was resistant to opening up all the way; he wanted to be the one to carry the entire load.
Reaching out, I stroked his hair away from his eyes.
He blinked slowly, a sign of trust.
“Vulnerability is not the same as weakness. Vulnerability means you’re strong,” I promised.
And when I thought about it, the times when Adam was the most beautiful to me was when he was vulnerable. Though he tried to hide that part of himself, he did his best to seem invincible.
“I’m plenty vulnerable. With you,” Adam amended quickly.
I sighed slowly through my nose. “You don’t tell me what’s bothering you. I know you’re out there on the streets every day risking your life, and that’s more noble than anything I’ve ever done—”
“Don’t compare in that way,” Adam said in his commanding tone.
I stopped stroking his hair for a few seconds, feeling a thrill run through me that I was in trouble.
“Sorry… I’m just saying that you shouldn’t use yourself as a comparison. I see you as this perfect person and—”
“Adam, I’m
