Page 15 of Sherwood
The only thing that was real and solid was the suited wolf in front of me, his eyes pale and his mouth in a firm, unreadable line. When I reached him, he pressed a large hand above my left breast.
I could feel my nerve-wracked heart pounding against it.
“Yes,” he finally said. “I am surprised.”
We stood there like that, him with his hand over my heart, our eyes locked in a world of red glimmers and soft shadows. “I told you I would come,” I said quietly, because I had when we’d texted earlier today. I’d given him a thorough list—limits, soft limits, desires that made me flush to type—and he’d thanked me for my courage. Then he told me what to expect while we played together and how a scene would unfold. Unless I saidred, I was his to do with as he pleased. If I saidyellow, we’d slow down or pause as the situation warranted. In case my mouth was otherwise occupied, I’d be given hand signals to use for safety. Everything else was up for negotiation, except for two more absolutes: I would submit to aftercare and I would always answer honestly when he asked me a question.
“You did tell me,” allowed Rafe. “But there was a reason it took you five years to come to a place like this. To find someone like me. I think that reason must have been a good one.”
He didn’t turn the statement into a question, and for that I was grateful, because it meant I didn’t have to answer. And I was afraid that if I answered, I would tell him about Lox, and I was scared that if I told him about Lox, I would start asking questions of my own.How did you meet—and when did you meet—and how long were you together? How did it end, and why did that ending send Lox all this way to warn me away from you?
I didn’t want to ask those questions. I couldn’t. Because even if I burned to know the answers, I could never unknow them once I did, and I wasn’t ready for that.
Like any victim of unrequited love, I wasn’t ready to hear how Lox had found someone else, someone better, once upon a time. It was easier to pretend she hadn’t, that she was a bad dream I’d only barely begun to wake from.
When I didn’t speak, Rafe’s mouth curled, as if he’d expected my silence. “You remember the rules?” he asked, dropping his hand.
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. You look very pretty tonight.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Is it for me?”
And for the girl I grew up loving, who once left me kneeling alone on the floor with lipstick smeared all over my face.
I said, carefully, “You were a consideration. Sir.”
A rasping laugh. “I can’t tell if you’re tempting me or teasing me with these walls of yours. But we’ll let it lie for now.”
I must have made some kind of expression, because he asked, “Does thefor nowmake you nervous, Marian?”
I had to respond honestly, and so I said, “It does.”
“And why is that?”
My answer surprised me as much as it didn’t seem to surprise him. “Because it hurts to think about why I have those walls.” And then I let out a long breath. “Oh.”
He nodded, as if that was the answer he’d expected, and his hand went up to finger the end of my braid.
“May I askyoua question? Sir?”
I could feel the brush of his fingertips over the fabric of my dress as he toyed with my hair. “You may.”
“Why do you care what’s behind any walls of mine? We don’t know each other, we haven’t promised anything to each other. This is just a temporary arrangement until your work in Sherwood is done. Does it matter what I’m feeling? Or thinking? Or what baggage I might have?”
“It matters,” he said, trailing his fingers up to my collarbone and neck, and from there to my chin so he could lift my face to his, “becausetemporaryis not mutually exclusive withimportant. Because I want our time together to be memorable and delicious, and that only comes with surrender—not the facile surrender of a casual encounter, but the broken, bruised kind of defeat that comes with having opened yourself. I’m not asking for your life story, but I do want inside you, I do crave your breaking, and so it’s important I know if these walls are because of bad kink or a bad dominant. I want to hurt you, darling—I have no desire to harm you. This is important to me.”
Is it?
The question flashed through my mind almost against my will, tied to the memory of Lox in my house last night, her lips painted as dark as the rainy night outside.
I didn’t say he wasn’t going to harm you.
I pushed the doubt away. I didn’t need Lox fucking with my head more than she already had. If I’d decided to be here, then I was deciding to trust Rafe. Simple as that.
“It’s not because of bad kink,” I told him now. I didn’t want him worrying about that.Nokink at all with Lox had been the actual problem. “Or a bad dominant. And do you really crave my breaking?” I added curiously.
