Page 30 of After Hours
Unlike Joseph, he didn’t throw a tantrum when he discovered that Romily didn’t have a skill she’d never claimed to have in the first place.
She thought it was progress that it no longer made her feel uneasy. Just… bemused.
He also didn’t think much of her dietary practices, and had taken it upon himself to make sure that she properly fueled herself for the demands she—and he—put upon her body. It was distressing to discover that he was right. She felt much better, all the time. She had energy to spare.
Plus, what he made was always delicious.
“So that app isactuallya club,” she said when they sat down to eat at the table in the corner of his kitchen. She felt that blue gaze of his move over her, but when she glanced up from the plate he’d put before her, he was looking at his own food. “And there’s going to be a real club. That people go to and do… these things we do.”
“Do you find that intriguing?” he asked.
When he looked up this time, that blue gaze caught her. But then, all of him caught her. The sharp planes of his face. That dark beard. When he’d only been her fantasy, she’d thought he was too perfect to be real. Now that she knew him intimately, she still thought he was perfect. But also real.
By now, she knew better than to answer questions he asked her without thinking them through.
“I don’t know how it makes me feel,” she said after a moment. “Maybe a little intrigued. Maybe worried.” When his brow lifted, she blew out a breath. “That there will be expectations of me.”
Zachary put down his fork and studied her for a moment across the table. He reached out that big hand of his and she took it at once, then studied the tattoos on his arm. On that perfectly defined forearm.
“The only expectations that will ever be set for you are mine, Romily,” he told her. “And, I hope, your own. What would there be to worry about?”
“I don’t know.”
He didn’t change his expression. He didn’t tense in any way. He simply waited, and she sighed, because she knew already. She knew better, in fact.
One thing that made this relationship so different from anything else she’d ever experienced in her life was that Zachary demanded total honesty. Sometimes it took some work to get to it, but he insisted upon it. And sooner or later, he always got it.
If you lie to yourself, you’re lying to me by default,he had told her once during a particularly intense scene.And then where does that leave us?
I thought this was supposed to be fun,she had thrown at him, furious and not exactlyhurt,but coming apart against boundaries she hadn’t even known were in her head.
But he had, of course.
You’ve heard that saying, haven’t you?He had crouched down next to her, where he’d tied her to his footboard. ‘With great power comes great responsibility.’ Why would that be any different in a power exchange like this? We pay for our pleasure, but I like to think that the price is worth it.
She liked to think that too. Maybe not in the middle of the scene she was confronted by a parade of her own demons, but a girl couldn’t have everything.
Here at the table, he waited. He didn’t take his hand back. He didn’t punish her. He never did, not in the moment. He would assess the situation later and mete out punishment as he saw fit. And it was always very clear to her when he was punishing her because he wanted to turn her on and when he was punishing her because he wanted her to get in touch with her emotions the only way she could.
The thing about Zachary was that he was always, always perfectly clear.
“You talk a lot about training,” Romily said, haltingly. “I guess in my darkest moments I wonder what you’re training mefor. You told your friend you don’t share. Is that true?”
“It’s true right now,” Zachary replied, his gaze steady. “If sharing is something that we both think is hot and we negotiate a scene that works within our hard limits, I wouldn’t say no.”
“Do youwantto share me?” she asked, she didn’t realize until she said it how much of her heart was in her voice.
But Zachary did. Something changed in that endless blue of his gaze. He switched the way their hands were touching, lacing his fingers with hers.
“I don’t,” he told her. “But I’m kinky as fuck, Romily. And you are too. So I’m never going to say never to anything that comes up. But between you and me? That’s not really on my list.”
“Good,” she said, in more of a rush than she intended. “It’s not on my list either. For either one of us.”
The way he looked at her left her feeling something like shaken. “Noted.”
He went back to eating, but he didn’t let go of her hand. And she supposed that she should have been surprised that he could eat with his left hand as easily as he did with his right. She really should have known already that he was wholly ambidextrous.
She had certainly experienced it.
