Healing the Wounds (28 page)

Fingertips stroking silk, he nodded in rapt fascination.

“They give me courage. And love. All wrapped up in Henry’s touch. And this pair is my new favorite. Do you know why?”

“His eyes,” Jay murmured. He nuzzled at her, his nose bumping her clitoris.

Her desire ticked up a notch, and she forced herself to set it aside. She hadn’t been so blatantly sexual with his last two rewards, and she wouldn’t make this more than comfort and foreplay. Bonding.

“The color matches. Like he’s watching over us. S’why I like my shorts with the green stripe best.”

“Exactly right,” she whispered. “Come up here and unbutton my shirt, sweetheart. The bra matches, and what’s underneath is for you.”

“Kisses?” Popping his head up, he set to work on the bottom button of her shirt.

“For any skin you reveal.”

Her shirt followed her pants to the floor, and she ordered Jay onto the bed. Not out of his clothes. She’d work up to those rewards eventually. He curled against her in his T-shirt and tented shorts. She laid his fingers on the front clasp of her bra. “Do you want to give me kisses here, Jay? Would you like that?”

He wriggled at her side, cock pressed to her hip, and whimpered. “Yes, please.”

She squeezed his hand and let go. “Go ahead, sweetheart. As many kisses as you like, until Henry calls us to dinner.”

He opened the clasp and brushed aside the silk with his hand.

She breathed deep, her chest lifting into his touch, the instinctive first breath of freedom after the day’s confinement. Henry had chosen surprisingly comfortable undergarments for her. She wasn’t denying that. But a bra was still a bra, and her breasts were not so large as to demand constant support, and off was always more comfortable than on.

Jay smothered her breasts in kisses. Light kisses first, lips dragging, cold as he inhaled and warm as he exhaled. His tiny, contented sounds, between a grunt and a hum, made her smile.

They lay side by side, bodies tilted toward each other. Her eyelids drooped as she stroked his back and his hair, murmuring to him of what a good boy he was. How much he deserved this time with her. How she appreciated his love.

She’d gotten it right. She felt the difference, the confidence filling her as Jay tugged at her nipples and his hands curled and flexed against her stomach. This time she’d balanced the comfort and relaxation she wanted and needed with the security and praise Jay wanted and needed. She wouldn’t wonder later how she’d done or wish she could ask Henry to grade her performance.

Things might be more playful on other nights. They might be more power-oriented. But in this moment, she’d listened to Jay’s needs and given him the right reward. She sighed, happy, relaxed. Her eyes drifted open, fastening on Henry, a silent witness in the doorway.

She raised an eyebrow, her hands pausing on Jay’s back, but Henry shook his head.

He raised a finger to his lips, curved in a gentle smile.
When you’re ready
, he mouthed.
Not before.

She gave the slightest nod, a movement Jay might interpret as her resettling her head, assuming he noticed. His fascination seemed trancelike.

Supper was served half an hour late Wednesday, with no complaints.

* * * *

Alice adjusted numbers on her computer screen. Silently swore. Adjusted them back. Listened to Jay’s laughter from the living room, where Henry provided contemptuous commentary for the reality show Jay had stopped the TV on. Hard to resist a train wreck. And that’s what she had here, too.

June would start in two days. Tomorrow was Friday—Henry’s time. Saturday they’d be dining with Santa, a nerve-racking prospect even though she’d suggested it. Her June budget had to get ironed out tonight. With a lease demanding thirty days’ notice before vacating, she’d still be paying June rent on her empty apartment.

By itself, not a problem. Except now she lived
here
, and she ought to pay her share of the June rent, and she didn’t even know what that was. Sitting at the dining room table staring at the numbers for over an hour brought nothing beyond embarrassment and frustration.

Whatever one-third of Henry’s rent came to, she couldn’t pay it. Not while paying her old rent. Her student loan payments. Her little sister’s rent and a stipend for her expenses, because she refused to have Olivia dividing her attention between medical school and a job. Ollie deserved the best opportunities. The path with the fewest obstacles.

“Alice, come join us.” Henry’s voice rose above the varying modulations emanating from the television. “You’ve sequestered yourself quite long enough for the night.”

“Uh-huh.” If she didn’t contribute to the food budget and didn’t eat lunch all month, she could offer a partial payment on her share of the rent. “In a minute.” She could go without lunch. The breakfasts and dinners he made for her and Jay would—

“
Now
, please, Alice.”

Huh? What—shit. She’d blown him off in her distraction. And it wasn’t as if she were making progress, because there was none to be made. Time to suck up her courage.

She powered down the computer and joined the men on the couch. Henry sat sideways, his legs stretched along the cushions. Jay lay on his side, his head pillowed on Henry’s thigh.

Jay sat up enough for Henry to pull her into his lap before settling down again. His weight sprawled across both of them, head near her hip, shoulder a gentle pressure between her legs. He shifted as he made himself comfortable.

She fought not to squirm.

Henry clasped her shoulders and touched his mouth to her ear. “I’ll gladly allow some leeway in your conduct, Alice, but I do expect to be treated with more respect than an irritating insect swatted away without thought.”

“I know. You’re right, Henry. I was distracted. I’m sorry.” Not because he was her dominant, but because he was her lover and her friend, and he deserved better than her inattention.

He pressed his thumbs deep into the back of her neck, digging tiny circles in her muscles. “More than distracted, I’d say.”

“Rude, then.” Her eyes drifted half-closed. “I’m still sorry.”

Uttering a noncommittal sound, Henry sank his thumbs lower and dug deeper, pushing out toward her shoulders. “I was speaking of your tension, my sweet girl.” He kissed the top of her ear. “What has you so distressed tonight?”

The perfect opening. “Could I—would it be all right if I waited to start paying my share of the rent until July?”

Henry’s hands stopped moving. Shit.

Jay rolled to his back, tipping his head into her stomach. “What share of the rent?”

“Mine. My third?”

Jay moved his head from side to side with slow, regular motions.

“You aren’t paying rent?”

“Paying the rent isn’t his responsibility, Alice.” Henry resumed the massage. “Nor is it yours.”

Rebellion bolted through her. “I’m living here. I’ll pay my fair share.” When you lived with someone, you split the costs down the middle and paid for your own food. “I always have before.”

“You’re been living with roommates before. Such is not the case here.” Henry crossed his arms in front of her and held her tightly to him. “Providing a home for you and Jay is my privilege.”

“But that’s—” Fuck. She didn’t mean to sound ungrateful, but she didn’t like feeling beholden, either. She needed to pay her share. She just couldn’t until July. “I don’t know if I can do that.”

Jay looked up at her with wide eyes.

Henry rested his head against hers. “Tell me why not. What is it about the idea that makes you uncomfortable?”

“I guess—” Dad had handled the financial stuff until his accident. When Mom had taken over, homework had come with a chorus of angry voices in the background every night.

Not paying rent meant handing Henry another kind of control over her. Wiggle room to push for authority over her bank accounts. Not happening. Had she inadvertently picked a man who felt worthless if he didn’t control the cash flow? She should’ve asked before she fell in love.

“I want to be an equal partner, Henry.” Christ, she sounded like an idiot. An equal partner in a relationship built on inequality. Power exchanges she’d agreed to. “Financially, I mean.”

“When you lived with roommates, Alice, an equal share of the rent earned you an equal voice in decisions, did it not?”

“It was supposed to, yeah.” Her last roommates hadn’t given a shit about keeping common areas clean.

“Payment served as a kind of protection. A guarantee.” Henry’s even tone offered no clues to his thoughts.

“Right.” God, navigating this minefield would be easier if she knew whether she’d offended him.

“Because your roommates had no particular concern for your welfare beyond your ability to pay, did they?”

“We weren’t friends, if that’s what you mean.”

“I do mean.” Henry dropped his hand to Jay’s chest.

Jay’s heavy exhalation sank chest and hand both. He tracked her with his eyes. Tension clung to his lips and jaw.

“Am I someone you need protection from, Alice? A roommate you fear might throw you out if you can’t deliver? Perhaps you feel paying rent is a safety clause. A backup in the event you somehow fail to satisfy me as a submissive or as a sexual partner? A way of showing you are worth more than your actions in our bed?” Henry’s harsh whispers slashed at her heart.

“That’s not—I wouldn’t—” But she trembled. He wasn’t wrong. She wanted proof, something she could point to and say she’d contributed, some security that this relationship wouldn’t dissolve into nothing. Or worse. Paying an equal share from the start, she’d avoid angry bickering over money.

“It’s all right, sweet girl.” Henry pressed his lips against the side of her head. “You’re unaccustomed to thinking of your lovers as family. Unaccustomed to living with them. To considering a future with them.” He coaxed her with a gentle, low tone. “You’ve adjusted to a great number of changes in the last year, Alice. If this is one for which you feel unready, that’s fine.”

Henry’s deep breath lifted her as his chest moved, and he tightened his arm around her. “We’ll call June a trial month of nonpayment, hmm? If, come July, you remain uncomfortable with the notion, we’ll settle on something appropriate then.”

He hadn’t said no or dismissed her concerns. He’d give her time to work through them. Of course he would. He was Henry. “I can live with that.”

“Good.” He traced the edge of her collarbone. “As you’re considering, perhaps you’ll think on how you might handle such a situation in my position?”

“In your position?” She’d never be in Henry’s position. Hell, if she hadn’t met him, she wouldn’t even be in her position.

“As the established leader in a relationship. Imagine—ah. Yes. You’re close with your sister, are you not? Despite the geographic distance between you?”

“I try to be, yeah. She’s in California, but we do our best.” Not so much contact as she’d like, but Ollie had been so busy with internship rotations this year that their schedules had rarely matched.

“If you had a comfortable home, well within your means, and she were to come live with you, would you insist she pay rent?”

“Of course not. I’d be paying the same for my place whether she lived there or not. I’d want her to save her money for more important things.” What a ridiculous question. “She’s my little sister. I love her.”

Silence from Henry. A smirk from Jay.

“Oh.” Closing her eyes, she swallowed through the tight warmth in her chest she hadn’t understood how to quantify before. Something she welcomed now rather than fighting against.

“Yes, ‘oh.’” Henry turned her head and delivered a kiss over her shoulder. A long, slow kiss, his tongue stroking hers, his fingers caressing her neck. “You are my lover, Alice. My sweet girl. I want no less for you than you want for the ones you love, hmm?”

Henry patted Jay’s chest, and Jay threaded their fingers together. He tugged her right hand with his until they, too, lay on his chest.

She ruffled his hair with her left hand. Instead of the grin she expected, Jay studied her with unaccustomed seriousness.

“Henry’s never asked me to pay rent. And he’s never threatened to toss me out. Not even—” Jay squeezed their hands. “Not even when I had nightmares. And I hated going to work and facing the guys I used to hang out with. Even if they didn’t know, I felt like they did. Like they saw everything that was wrong with me.”

Henry rubbed Jay’s chest in slow strokes, their hands moving together. “There’s nothing wrong with you, my boy,” he murmured.

Jay nodded against her stomach. “I couldn’t keep working there. But I didn’t have the money for my own place if I wasn’t working. And I was too…ashamed…to go home and have to explain.” He shrugged. “When I moved in with Henry, I didn’t have a job and we weren’t having sex. He let me sleep in his bed, and he didn’t ask me for anything. He only asked what I wanted. What my perfect day would look like.”

There was the grin she’d expected.

“That’s when I put together the business plan and found the right target. Henry gave me the capital to buy out the messenger service. I built up the expanded services myself. And now I get to spend every day on my bike helping people and every night in Henry’s bed pleasing him and myself. And now you.”

Jay crushed her fingers in his. Understanding gleamed in his eyes.

“Alice, I still have my own bank accounts. I could pay the rent on this place. If I’d made a mistake and this was something abusive, I could get out. Not ’cause I thought of it, but ’cause Henry did. He insisted I keep my money separate. Made sure I understood I could…escape…at any time.” Jay shook his head. He’d never want to leave this relationship.

Neither did she. Even if it meant rethinking the meaning of equal partner.

“I let Henry pay the rent himself because providing a home is part of how he shows he loves me. Like the way he makes sure I have a good breakfast and dinner every day.” Jay squeezed her as if he could imbue her with his own certainty by the press of a hand.

Her subconscious agreed. Jay had the greater experience here. He was a fine guide in this.

“It’s okay to be nervous. Just don’t think it’s something it’s not, okay? Henry’s not trying to trap you or make you some second-class person.”